


Subatomic

by earlybloomingparentheses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bottom Remus, Daddy Kink, Discussion of violence against minoritized groups, Discussions of British colonialism, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, M/M, Magical Sex Toys, No one is actually hurt but there's a very hurt/comfort dynamic to the sex, Relationship Development, Sex Shop, Sexual Fantasy, The thorny imbrication of sex and politics, Top Sirius, Urination, Watersports, Werewolf Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-07-08 17:28:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19873357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlybloomingparentheses/pseuds/earlybloomingparentheses
Summary: Remus goes to a sex shop looking for a line of items called SUBATOMIC: TOYS FOR THE BOTTOM WITHOUT A TOP. He finds a top there, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: the story mentions a lot of different kinds of toys in the sex shop that imply many different kinds of sex, so just be aware that there are brief references to bloodplay, mild student/teacher fantasy, and magically induced paralysis during sex, among other things. There are also mentions of daddy kink, which will make an appearance in actual sex scenes in future chapters. I'll include further notes at the beginning of each chapter and update the tags as needed.

Remus hunched his way through the shop. There was no other word for it. Head down, shoulders tight, back bowed. He hunched his way through the front door, startling at the jangle of the bell. He hunched his way past the clerk at the desk, nodding slightly without making eye contact. He hunched his way through the squat front room, with its heavy-curtained windows and low lighting.

He hunched his way past LOTTIE’S LUSCIOUS LUBES: EXTRA-SLICK, ICY-HOT, TANTALIZING TINGLE, AND MORE! He hunched his way past stacks of _Enchantment in the Bedroom: The Classic Guide to Magical Sex_ , _Potions for Lovers_ , and _Charm Their Pants Off—Literally!_ He hunched his way past the giggling young women clustered around a dildo flashing Gryffindor scarlet and gold and the furtive older man eyeing a stack of frilly lingerie.

He hunched his way into the next room, glancing rapidly around at NAUGHTY NOVELTIES (mandrake-shaped anal plugs, unicorn horn vibrators, a bright purple model of a giant squid with squirming tentacles that looked as though they could reach all sorts of places) and SALACIOUS SERUMS (breast-enlarging potions, long-lasting erection tinctures, sensory-enhancing and sensory deprivation concoctions). He spared a moment of surprised approval for the section for trans and genderqueer wizards that offered a variety of self-adhering cocks, beard-growing and beard-vanishing potions, and stacks of books and lists of resources. He resumed hunching as he stepped past a burly customer in black leather into the room labeled BONDAGE AND S/M, where Remus’ heart and cock both jumped at the displays of charmed handcuffs, self-knotting ropes, biting nipple clamps, and hot wax dripping from a cauldron floating in midair. He hesitated, peering past the wooden paddles that were spanking the air above him; perhaps what he was looking for would be in this room. But he didn’t see it, so he hunched his way through the next door, into the final room.

He almost forgot to hunch. He was glad there were no other customers there to see his jaw drop.

This room catered to more unusual tastes than the others. Some of the objects had a clear purpose—the clawed metal hand that scraped down the chest of one naked mannequin, the enchanted toy snake that slithered impossibly far down the throat of another—but many were more obscure. There was a vat of iridescent liquid that steamed and roiled; there was a live plant with spiky growths; there was a seemingly innocuous stretch of fabric that, upon inspection of the accompanying instructions, turned out to render the wearer blind and deaf if wrapped around their head. Single-use charms, bound up in little packets of lacewing flies and adder’s fang and moon-ripened spiderfruit, offered their users the sensation of being burned by flames, drowning in ice water, or choked by climbing vines. A frightening-looking mass of sticky moving slime slinked its way around a display dildo, squeezing and sliding and separating into threads and webs that wrapped up tight.

Remus’ head was spinning. He felt slightly faint. He was beyond the point of hunching in embarrassment; he moved as if in a dream, floating around the blessedly empty room and trying in vain to suppress his erection.

He almost forgot that he was here on a mission. The line of toys he’d read about in a pornographic queer pamphlet ferreted out of the back corner of the secondhand bookshop on Hogsmeade’s dustiest street was, if this shop carried it at all, somewhere in this room.

He raised his head and looked around. BUCKING BROOMSTICKS: LET THE BROOMS RIDE YOU _—_ no. SQUIRTING BALL GAGS—appealing, but no. PREWETT & CROWE FLAVORED LUBES FOR DISCERNING TASTEBUDS: DIRT, SHIT, BLOOD, AND MORE—Remus shuddered.

And then there it was, a whole glorious display of what Remus had been panting over for the last several months, hand wrapped around his cock, writhing alone in bed:

SUBATOMIC: TOYS FOR THE BOTTOM WITHOUT A TOP.

Remus’ blood rushed hot through each and every one of his veins. He stepped forward, nerves tempering the unbearable eagerness with which he wanted to move. He wanted to pick them all up, to touch every single one.

The pamphlet had mentioned the manacles that Remus saw now, bronze and heavy and coiled, that would twist the arms of the user into one of thirteen different positions, either randomized or preselected depending on the charm used to activate it. Remus had also read about the paddle that emitted a booming voice that instructed the user to get down on their hands and knees and take it like—again, depending on the charm used to activate it—a little sweetheart, a dirty slut, an insolent prick, a pretty piece of arse, a misbehaving shit who skipped Defense Against the Dark Arts one too many times, and so on. But the majority of the toys arrayed on the three-tiered wooden display were new to Remus. Toes curling, he examined a bottled potion that promised to render the user simultaneously aroused and mostly paralyzed, unable to touch themself until the potion wore off.

His eyes traveled to the next shelf down and stopped, transfixed. A fat ridged dildo—with, at first glance, nothing unusual about it, was labeled DADDY’S COCK: FOR SUCKING AND FUCKING, BUT ONLY IF YOU ASK DADDY NICELY.

Heat shot straight to Remus’ groin. Breathing deeply, he reached out and picked it up. He turned it over in his hand, sliding his thumb reverently from base to tip.

And then, as he touched the head, a voice came from the toy, loud and crystal clear:

“Daddy wants your sweet little arsehole now.”

Remus yelped and dropped the dildo. When it hit the floor, the voice spoke again:

“Will you be a good little boy and spread your legs for Daddy?” Remus stared at the toy in horror, mortification shooting hot through every single vein in his body. He looked with dread toward the doorway. Merlin willing, no one was in the next room, and the voice hadn’t been loud enough to reach the register and the ears of the clerk.

But it turned out it didn’t matter if there was anyone in the next room. Because while Remus had been immersed in the display of Subatomic toys, someone had walked into this one.

The customer was in his mid-twenties. He was tall. He was wearing a dark jacket and motorcycle boots. He had long, artfully disheveled hair. And he was looking straight at Remus.

Heat flushed through Remus’ face. The top of his head felt so hot it was cold. He tore his eyes hurriedly away from the man’s and bent to the ground, scrabbling around for the toy he had dropped. He fumbled to pick it up and return it to the shelf. As he did, it said again—Remus swore it was louder this time—“Will you be a good little boy and spread your legs for Daddy?”

Crouched on the ground, dildo in his hand, Remus was frozen. Then he heard the tap of footsteps coming closer.

Humiliation burning in every corner of his body, Remus looked up.

The man was standing over him.

“I think Daddy wants an answer,” he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: pretty much just daddy kink! Mentions of other things (bloodplay, choking, etc.) but none of them happen in this chapter.

It was possible that Remus lost time. The stranger's comment seemed to be followed by a long moment of absolute, utter blankness. When Remus came to, he was still holding the fat ridged cock in his hand and staring up at the man who had spoken—seconds ago? Minutes?

“Er…”

He gaped, fishlike, at the man. The man crooked an amused smile. Then anger shot through Remus. He scrambled to his feet. What the fuck was this stranger’s problem?

He dropped the dildo back on the display, wincing when it said, “Daddy’s getting impatient.” Well, that was the end of things for Remus today. Frustration pulsed through him. He’d gotten up the courage to come to this stupid shop, to admit in public that he wanted a sex toy to top him, that he wanted a sex toy to _tell him to call it Daddy_ , and some stranger was making fun of him for something that was clearly the fault of an overactive Speaking Charm? Remus glared at the man and turned on his heel. Now he’d have to come back later, if he could ever get over the humiliating memory.

“Whoa,” the man said. “Wait, wait—hang on, please.”

Remus stopped reluctantly, fists clenching.

“I didn’t mean to—” The man sighed. “Ah, fuck.” Remus could hear a good-natured grin in his voice, and he turned around, almost despite himself.

“Didn’t mean to offend you. Sorry, I’m always putting my foot in it.” The man stretched out a hand. “Sirius.”

Remus blinked. The man had seen him drop a daddy dildo on the floor of a sex shop and now he wanted to shake Remus’ hand? Did strangers shake each other’s hands in sex shops? Was that a thing that people did?

Sirius’ hand was unwavering, so, nonplussed, Remus stepped over and shook it.

“Remus,” he said, and then wondered immediately if he should have used a false name.

“Well, Remus. You have good taste.”

Remus stared.

Sirius bent his head toward the Subatomic display. “They’re good quality. Somebody must have forgotten to deactivate the charm on that one after they tested it—usually it’s not so, ah, vocal.”

“Do you work here?” Remus asked, managing to find his voice.

Sirius threw his head back and laughed. He had astonishingly good teeth.

“No, no. Just a regular customer. Wish Lily would pay me, though.” At Remus’ enquiring look, he said, “The woman at the counter. She more or less runs the place.”

This whole conversation was surreal. Sirius—the stranger, Remus reminded himself—was leaning against a shelf full of books with titles like _Manticore Kink_ and _Safe Bloodplay and Healing Charms_ and he looked totally at ease. He was also, Remus now could not help but notice, very hot.

“Got any favorites?” Sirius asked, nodding toward the Subatomic display.

“Oh,” Remus said. “Er. I’ve not—these are, erm, new. For me.”

Sirius smiled. Remus’ stomach dropped.

“Do, you, er—” he stumbled—“what are your, erm, favorites?”

“Oh, I don’t have any of those myself,” Sirius said. “Not quite my demographic.”

For a second, Remus didn’t understand. Then he remembered the sign: TOYS FOR THE BOTTOM WITHOUT A TOP.

So did that make Sirius…a bottom _with_ a top? Or…

“Mind you, I do all right,” Sirius said, “but during dry spells—well, whipping a pillow just isn’t quite the same, even if it is charmed to squeal.”

Remus made an incoherent noise at the back of his throat.

“I’m here for this,” Sirius said, brandishing a glass bottle that Remus had not noticed he’d been holding until now. “Just good old-fashioned self-squirting lube. Thought I’d take a gander through the back room, see if Lily had gotten in anything new and exciting.”

Why was this man still talking to him? It should have been weird, Remus thought. Even creepy. A stranger talking about whipping pillows, minutes after meeting? A stranger whose first words to Remus had been to poke fun at his mishap with the daddy dildo?

Or—or maybe not poking fun, after all.

Remus looked, startled, into Sirius’ eyes. Sirius looked back. Remus saw, in their dark depths, a spark of curiosity. And a spark of hunger.

“What do you think?” Remus said quietly, gesturing to the dildo. “Should I get it?”

Sirius seemed to consider. “Well,” he said. “In my opinion, definitely. It’s worth the Galleons.”

Remus nodded slowly. He was certainly a little aroused by the idea of this man knowing he would be using the toy on his recommendation. But he was also a little disappointed. If Sirius thought he should buy a toy cock, then…

Back to being a top without a bottom.

“But also,” Sirius said, and Remus looked up again, heart skipping a beat, “if you wanted. My, er, demographic seems to be compatible with yours, so…”

Remus stared.

“I know we just met. But I don’t really give a shit about stuff like that.”

Sirius looked…he looked handsome, and disreputable but not _too_ disreputable, and mischievous, and _hot_ , and, Remus thought a little bit wildly, like he could probably give Remus a very thorough going-over. Remus thought about calling this stranger _Daddy_ and nearly swallowed his own tongue.

“Okay.”

Sirius looked pleased and startled. “Fuck. That worked. Okay. Okay!” He shook his head and laughed a little. “I promise I’ll be smoother in bed.”

Remus breathed in through his nose. “I…promise I’ll be quicker to answer your questions.”

They locked eyes for a second, heat shooting between them, and then they broke eye contact, both of them grinning a little.

“When?” Remus asked.

Sirius cocked his head, considering. “Why not now?”

So Remus bought the daddy dildo and brought it with him to Sirius’ flat. Sirius lived alone in a one-bedroom that was small but pretty posh by London standards.

“It’s a bit bare,” Sirius said, showing Remus in. “I lived with my mate James after Hogwarts, but he moved in with Lily—the woman from the shop, you know—and I’m not sure I ever really got the hang of living alone.”

“Ah,” Remus says. He’s being diplomatic by not pointing out that Sirius’ place is still fuller and sleeker by far than Remus’ mouldy flat two Apparition stations out of the city.

“Stole that from Hogwarts,” Sirius says, nodding at an extremely ugly stone statue of a gargoyle performing a pirouette. “James and I nicked it our last day there. Er, speaking of…”

Remus’ stomach flipped. It always did when people wanted to know why they hadn’t met him at Hogwarts.

“Homeschooled,” he said. “Er. I was homeschooled. My mum…I was ill a lot as a kid, and…yeah. She didn’t want me exposed to all the other students and stuff.”

Sirius winced. “Rough. I’d have just about died if I were homeschooled.” He hesitated. “I’m, er. A Black.”

It took Remus a moment to realize what Sirius meant. He knew of the Blacks, of course—an old, nasty pureblood supremacist family who’d been equally active in the wizarding segment of Indian colonization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and anti-werewolf legislation efforts into the present day. Remus’ grandfather, a member of the Indian National Congress, would not have been pleased. But then again he likely wouldn’t have been pleased about a lot of what Remus was about to do, regardless of who he did it with.

“You’re not…close to your family, then?” Remus asked, tentative.

Sirius shook his head emphatically. “Especially not after the war. Whatever you’ve heard about them and You-Know-Who is probably true, but not for me. I swear.”

Remus nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say. He looked around at Sirius Black’s flat, eyes lingering on the tile floors and the avocado green countertop. He wondered why Sirius was telling him this. They were about to fuck—weren’t they? Strangers who hooked up for casual sex didn’t owe each other their family histories and personal traumas—and thank Merlin for that, Remus thought. It didn’t matter how far away the full moon was; no one wanted to have sex with a werewolf.

“I just, er…” Sirius fidgeted. “I’m about to order you around, and call you a bunch of names, if you’re into that, and act like I think I’m better than you. I don’t want you to think that I actually think that.”

“Oh,” Remus said. He blinked. “Oh. Well—okay. And, er. Yeah. I’m into it.”

“Great.” Sirius grinned, a little wickedly. “So. What’s off limits?”

“Well. Blood. Anything too painful, but I’ll—I can tell you if that happens. Don’t choke me without warning me and don’t make me pass out.”

Sirius nodded. “I’m not going to do any charms or give you any potions that affect your ability to move or speak, either. I don’t do that with people I don’t know.”

“Right. Yeah, good. And I don’t want to throw up, either.”

“No. I am…not planning anything that extreme. Mostly just going to make you beg and call me Daddy. Maybe give you a good spanking if you need it. Yeah?”

Remus inhaled sharply. “Yeah.”

“Safeword?”

“Acid pop.”

“Great.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then Sirius took a step toward Remus. Something in him seemed to still. His scattered energy settled. His gaze grew steady and penetrating.

He reached out a hand and put it gently under Remus’ chin, tipping his head up, so that Remus looked up into the taller man’s eyes. Remus felt, suddenly, quite small.

“I want you to go into my bedroom and sit at the foot of the bed. Can you do that for me?”

Remus nodded. There was nothing particularly exciting about Sirius’ instructions, but Remus’ heartbeat quickened anyway.

“Good boy.”

Remus sat on Sirius’ bed. Sirius stood over him and unbuttoned Remus’ shirt. He ran his fingers along the parallel scars across Remus’ chest but said nothing about them.

Once Remus was undressed, Sirius laid him down on his back on the bed. He was still wearing all his clothes, except for the motorcycle boots. The anxious part of Remus’ brain, which was still whirring, wondered if Sirius actually had a motorbike.

“Look at you,” Sirius said. He was kneeling above Remus, surveying him, running his eyes over Remus’ face and chest and legs. Remus felt a hot gulp of shame in his throat.

“I’m a mess. I’m sorry,” he muttered. His scars, his too-thin belly, his jutting hipbones.

Sirius cocked his head. He studied Remus for a moment. “A mess? I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Remus bit his lip, mute.

Sirius looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you nervous?”

Remus cleared his throat. He nodded. “I’m—okay, though.”

Sirius smoothed back his hair. Remus leaned slightly into the touch.

“I was planning to be mean to you,” Sirius said. “After seeing you blush like that in the shop, when you dropped the dildo. Thought how good it would be to humiliate you for a nice long time.”

Remus nodded. His fingertips and toes prickled. “It—it would be good,” he said.

“I don’t doubt that. But I get to decide, don’t I?”

Pulse quickening, Remus nodded again.

“I don’t like that you called yourself a mess.” Sirius’ voice grew slightly stern. “I won’t have that kind of talk from you, all right?”

Remus nodded.

“What do you say?”

Remus felt he couldn’t open his lips. The word perched on the edge of his tongue, fighting to get out.

“Answer me aloud, sweetheart.”

The pet name made Remus flush hot. He squirmed, hands opening and closing helplessly.

“Come on, sweet boy. What do you say when I ask you something?”

Sirius’ gaze was so steady, his hand, now resting on Remus’ naked chest, so firm. Remus opened his mouth. A garbled sort of noise came out. He coughed. He looked into Sirius’ dark eyes.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Sirius’ hand clenched. He inhaled hard. Then he mastered himself again and leaned in to give Remus a brief, paternal kiss on the forehead.

“That’s right. I knew you could do it.”

Sirius had his hands on Remus’ nipples. He was shirtless, now, too. He was pinching Remus hard and then, as soon as Remus whimpered, would kiss his nipples very gently and say, “Poor darling.”

Remus had been a little disappointed when Sirius said he wasn’t going to be mean to him. He was not disappointed now.

“It’s hard for you, isn’t it?” Sirius breathed in his ear as he pinched Remus’ nipples. “It hurts. I know. Is it hard for you when things hurt?”

Remus felt tears rush to his eyes and linger there, unshed. He nodded.

Sirius massaged Remus’ nipples between his fingers, dull constant pain mingling with sharper bursts when he dug his knuckles in. “My sweet boy. You’re doing so well.”

Remus whined. Sirius bent and kissed his swollen nipples, gently, one at a time.

“So well. So good, to let me hurt you like this, even when it’s hard.”

Sirius pinched his nipples once more and then bent down and took Remus’ bottom lip between his teeth. Remus sucked in a breath. Sirius bit down.

Remus yelped, the sound muffled by Sirius’ mouth, but Sirius didn’t let up. He pulled at Remus’ lip. His teeth _hurt._

“Good boy,” Sirius said, a little breathless, as he let go. “So good for Daddy.”

Sirius was taking his time. _Really_ taking his time. Remus had not at all anticipated this. Sirius had seemed impulsive, even a little erratic, before they had gone to bed. But now he was ultra focused, steady, methodical. He moved Remus around with expert hands and was startlingly good at figuring out just where it hurt the most.

“Daddy thinks you’re so pretty,” Sirius murmured in Remus’s ear as he gently fingered Remus’ cock.

Remus squeezed his eyes immediately shut. He couldn’t help it.

“Oh,” Sirius said. He rubbed his finger in soft circles over the head. “That’s no good. Open your eyes for me, sweetheart.”

Remus took a shaky breath and made himself do it.

“Daddy thinks you’re very pretty,” Sirius said again. Remus tried to return Sirius’ steady gaze, but his eyes skittered down and away.

Sirius cupped Remus’ chin in his hand and brought Remus’ face close. “Look at me,” he said softly. “This is hard, but you can do it, okay?”

Remus swallowed.

“Daddy thinks you’re a pretty boy.”

Remus managed, barely, to keep his eyes open.

“Good,” Sirius said, rewarding him with a squeeze of his cock. Remus gasped. Sirius smiled. “Now say it back to me,” he said. “What does Daddy think you are?”

Remus’ throat squeezed shut. He thought of the snarl of white skin at his hip, where he’d bitten himself one full moon in desperation. He thought of the way his ribs showed because he needed more food after the transformations than he could really afford. He thought of his thin, limp hair that he cut himself.

“This isn’t about what you think of yourself,” Sirius said, voice firming up. He gave Remus a long, stern look. “This is about what Daddy thinks of you. What does Daddy think you are, Remus?”

And Remus mustered every bit of courage he could and, in a voice so small and full of breath he almost couldn’t hear it himself, said, “A pretty boy.”

“You looked so sweet and scared when you saw me looking at you in the shop,” Sirius told him. They were both fully naked now. Remus’ cock was dripping. He felt strange and sunken into himself. The world had narrowed to Sirius’ bed, Sirius’ hands. Arousal enveloped him. So, too, did a sense of closeness. Enclosure. Like Sirius had wrapped him up.

“So embarrassed. Poor little Remus, so desperate for somebody to top you that you’d take orders from a talking dildo.”

Remus gasped. Sirius smiled. His face was flushed, his hands moving rapidly over Remus’ skin.

“I’d like to watch you take orders from that dildo. Like to watch it fuck you in the arse. Like to watch you beg it to fuck you in the arse.”

“Oh my god yes,” Remus blurted out. “Yes, yes, yes…”

Sirius bent and kissed him, hard. “I will. Not now. But I will.”

“Why not now?” Remus asked a little wildly. Now that Sirius had said it he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He writhed, frustrated, wanting.

“Because I said so,” Sirius replied a little sharply.

Immediately, Remus flushed with shame. “Yes. I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Sirius softened. “That’s all right, darling. You’re so eager, aren’t you? So nervous, but so filthy and so desperate.”

Remus whined and nodded frantically.

“It’s all right, sweetheart. Daddy’s going to take care of you.” Sirius kissed him again. “I want to say it before the dildo does. Want to be the first. I am your first Daddy, aren’t I?”

Remus felt so hazy, so strange. He struggled to answer, to string together coherent words. “Not…I have…just not—”

“You’ve been topped,” Sirius said questioningly. Remus nodded. “But has anybody else taken care of you like this? Anybody been your Daddy before?”

“No,” Remus whispered.

“I thought that might be the case,” Sirius said. He felt between Remus’ legs. “Goodness, sweetheart, you’re so wet for me. Now. What did the toy say? _Will you be a good little boy and spread your legs for Daddy?_ ”

Remus sobbed a little and a stray tear squeezed out of his eye. He was so far under. He spread his legs out as far as they would go, feet to the edge of the bed, feeling wanton, needy, frighteningly, wonderfully vulnerable.

“Oh, god,” Sirius said. His voice was strained. “God.”

He moved down Remus’ body and took Remus’ cock deep into his mouth.

Remus took a long time to come. Sirius sucked and sucked. After awhile, Remus asked, breathless and pained, if it was okay.

“Are you—are you bored? I’m sorry, I’m sorry it’s taking so long—”

Sirius suctioned his mouth around Remus’ cock and then emerged, panting, gripping his nails into Remus’ hips.

“I don’t want to hear another word from you unless it’s ‘Daddy,’” he replied, and waited for Remus to nod, relief flooding through him, before bending his head down again.

“Daddy,” Remus babbled, “Daddy, ah, Daddy, oh god Daddy,” and on and on as his orgasm built. He spurted into Sirius’ mouth, long and hard. Sirius kept sucking and licking at his cock until it was soft and too sensitive and tears of overstimulation trickled from Remus’ eyes.

Finally, Sirius pulled off. He moved to lie next to Remus. Remus could see his come at the edge of Sirius’ mouth.

“What should I…” he said, struggling to string the words together. “What do you…”

“Shhhh,” Sirius said, stroking Remus’ sweaty hair. “Just rest.”

“But—but you—”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“But—”

“Remus,” Sirius said, a firm edge back in his voice, “I am telling you not to worry about me. I don’t need to come right now. I am going to take care of my sweet, helpless boy, because you may feel like you’re ready to move on, but I’m very sure you’re not.”

Sirius was right. Remus knew this feeling, the burst of energy just after a particularly intense orgasm, inevitably preceding some sort of collapse. The phrase _sweet, helpless boy_ resonated in him with an odd curling of—of something, he didn’t know what; it felt different now that he was not so worked up and desperate.

Remus breathed out. He let his head fall back on the pillow and let Sirius lower himself on top of Remus, spreading his body over Remus’ naked skin. The pressure was good. Sirius’ cock was hard, but Remus let it go. Sirius would tell him if he wanted something.

The adrenaline spilled out of Remus gradually, leaving him limp and a little hollow. He buried his head in Sirius’ chest and let Sirius stroke his hair and breathed. He could feel the possibility of embarrassment lingering around the edges of his consciousness. But Sirius’ hands were firm and steady on his scalp and so Remus let himself wallow in Sirius’ touch instead.

“Funny that we met in a sex shop and didn’t use any toys,” Sirius said, after Remus was sitting up, the sheets over his knees, and Sirius’ erection had subsided.

Remus laughed. “That’s true. Not even your self-squirting lube.”

“Not even that.”

There was a longish pause.

“We should maybe fix that,” Sirius said.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. “We definitely should.”


	3. Chapter 3

Remus accidentally stayed at Sirius’ flat for five more hours after they got out of bed.

First he had to shower. Then Sirius offered tea. And Remus was still feeling a little wobbly, so he said yes. Then they both got hungry, so they ordered tandoori chicken and black lentil daal and lots of naan from the shop down the street, which was delivered by a spotty Muggle teenager who chewed gum with his mouth open. This blew Remus’ eating out budget for the month, but for once he didn’t mind. And then by the time they finished eating they were too busy talking to notice the time passing.

Sirius did have a motorbike, as it turned out. He’d enchanted it to fly, which was both illegal and dangerous, and Remus swore he would never ride it, even though the idea of it turned him on. Sirius worked as a treasure hunter for the wizarding arm of the British Museum, “but treasure hunter is a really outdated term,” he added hastily. “I don’t, like, steal artifacts from other countries. Mostly I just visit old tombs and barrows in Gloucestershire and Shetland and places like that and go in ahead of the archaeologists to clear them of hexes. I’ve learned a lot more about Anglo-Saxon stonework than I ever thought I would.”

Sirius had a tight circle of friends, Lily from the sex shop, her husband James, and someone named Peter; they had all been in the same year at Hogwarts together and, as Sirius described it, pretty much raised hell the whole time. “Spent most of my fifth year in detention,” Sirius said with a good-natured shrug. Once he and Remus had left the bedroom, Sirius had returned to how he’d seemed in Madame Mysteria’s, full of restless energy and either cheerfully self-deprecating or ironically self-aggrandizing. He talked more than Remus, but not in a way that Remus minded.

James was an Auror, and Peter had some managerial position at the Gringotts branch in Hogsmeade. Lily had only ended up at the sex shop because they’d been hiring when she needed a part-time job while going to school, but then she’d found she really liked it and now worked there full time, running workshops and classes and helping to select their inventory. “It’s great to have an in there,” said Sirius. “Sometimes I get to try out new products. Once they got in this line of joke potions that turned your come blue or purple or green. Really wigged out my ex. He was…not pleased that I didn’t warn him.”

Remus laughed, a little shocked at Sirius’ frankness, but then again there was hardly any reason for either of them to be coy. So Remus confessed to Sirius that it had taken him six months to work up the nerve to go look for the Subatomic toys in a shop.

“I’d only ever been to a Muggle sex shop, once, for like…ninety seconds? I walked in on impulse, before I could stop myself, but it was so straight I had to leave immediately.”

Sirius laughed. “Yeah, that’s not a problem at Madame Mysteria’s. Lily’s made sure of that.” He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and squeezed Remus’ ankle where it was crossed over his knee. “Thanks for not thinking I was a huge arsehole for coming onto you.”

“Well. Thanks for coming onto me.”

They drank more tea and Sirius ended up telling Remus about how shitty his family was, which, he said, “I usually don’t discuss on the first date but you did call me Daddy enough to basically _be_ family so I might as well,” and Remus nearly spit out his tea, and Sirius looked worried that he’d offended Remus until Remus began choking as he tried not to laugh. So Sirius told him how his actual father had loaded Sirius down with Black family heirlooms and tried to use ancient pureblood magic before the Hogwarts Sorting to make sure Sirius was placed in Slytherin, which didn’t work because Sirius ended up in Gryffindor out of sheer rebelliousness anyway. Sirius made it into a very funny story, describing himself as an eleven-year-old boy bowed under the weight of a centuries-old family brooch and about seven silver rings emblazoned with the Black family crest, shuffling up to the Hat, but Remus could tell that in truth it was really a terrible story. Sirius shrugged off Remus’ attempt at sympathy, but his disarming openness about cutting off contact with his mother during the war against Voldemort made things spill out of Remus’ mouth that he usually kept to himself.

“My mum’s dad cut her off when she married my dad,” Remus said. By this time he was curled up in the corner of Sirius’ couch, socked feet comfortably squeezed under Sirius’ legs. The light had all but gone outside, and the room was lit with a silver lamp that had flared on automatically once the sun had set. “My granddad was in the independence movement in India. My dad was visiting on a study tour when he met my mum. He’s Welsh, not English, but my granddad didn’t care. He told Mum if she married him he’d never speak to her again. So she and my dad moved to Gwynned, and had me.”

“You never got to meet him, then?”

“He changed his mind after I was born. I saw him every few years till he died. I’ve never been to India, though. I’d like to go. See the house in New Delhi where my mum grew up.”

“You should go!” Sirius said.

Remus shrugged. “Someday, yeah.” _If I can ever afford it,_ he didn’t say.

“My, er…I had relatives in India,” Sirius said. He knew enough about what this implied to look guilty, at least.

“I know,” Remus said. “The Blacks were high up in the colonial government.”

“Yeah. More shit from my family,” Sirius said, twisting the corner of the couch blankets tightly around his fingers. Neither of them said aloud what they both knew—that the Blacks in India had been vocal proponents of the Cruciatus Curse and of scouring the school curriculums of anything resembling native magical practices.

“Anyway,” said Remus, because he was familiar enough with being involuntarily saddled with something in childhood to not blame Sirius for his family history, despite the strangeness he couldn’t help but feel at the thought that he’d slept with a Black. He changed the subject, telling Sirius about his childhood in the Welsh countryside, sharing details about chickens and solitary walks and gray skies and leaving out the werewolf attack at age five and the subsequent strain on his parents. Sirius could listen well, too, as it turned out, and asked curious questions about the Gwyllgi, the Welsh version of the Grim, and about Remus’ mum’s attempts to find decent spices without taking a Portkey to a major city. Remus said more about his childhood than he remembered saying in a long time. Of course, he said more than he remembered saying in a long time, period. The friends he’d made since starting work in London were really acquaintances, the sort he went out for drinks with from time to time or caught up with if he ran into them in the shops. He’d moved from job to job for the first two years after the war ended in ’81, and it was only in the last two that he’d found something flexible enough—data entry and verification for the Department of Magical Transportation, which he could do from home—to be permanent. But working from his kitchen table didn’t exactly make for strong friendships with coworkers. He also found it ironic that he was employed by the organization that required him to report when he was leaving and entering the country due to its werewolf travel regulations, but he didn’t tell Sirius that.

“Do you want to, er…” Sirius said haltingly as the crescent moon began to rise in the darkening sky, “do this again sometime?”

Remus wondered if Sirius meant the sex, or the dinner, or the talking. He wanted to do all three again. “Yeah.”

Sirius grinned. “Great. I’ll owl you?”

Remus nodded. “Yeah. Please.”

Sirius kissed him as he was about to walk out the door. Remus had already half turned away when Sirius impulsively grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in.

Remus flushed, unable to control his smile.

“Goodnight, Sirius.”

“Goodnight, Remus. See you soon.”

Remus left the flat in a daze. His head was swimming. Warmth crept through him, turning his cheeks and ears and neck pink. Images from the day—Sirius in bed, Sirius grinning and gesturing wildly as crumbs flew from the naan in his hand, Sirius’s warm thighs pressed over Remus’ toes—floated in Remus’ mind as he walked toward the nearest Apparition station. Meanwhile, his stomach burbled with unease. He glanced up, and the waxing moon shone down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh I forgot to say--I'm (reluctantly) back on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain). come say hi!


	4. Chapter 4

Remus was thinking too much about Sirius.

He wanted to stop. He sat at his table, cross-checking the Portsmouth portkey log for April 22, 1985—two months before, give or take—and heard Sirius’ voice in his head. How it rose and fell, louder and softer without Sirius seeming to notice. Bits and pieces of the previous day’s conversation, of Sirius’ words, replayed at random on a loop.

_Want a cuppa?_

_past curfew_

_keep the change_

_Remus_

_Is it hard for you when things hurt?_

Remus couldn’t settle. His mind wouldn’t let him. Not just his mind—the whole experience of yesterday kept flashing through Remus like a song he couldn’t get out of his head, like muscle memories that made him twitch, like a Jitter Jinx, like a layer of sweat on a hot day. It wasn’t exactly specific details that kept popping up; he couldn’t remember precisely the way Sirius’ hair fell over his forehead or how he looked when he had just undressed. No freckles, no scars, no creases by his eyes or at the insides of his elbow. It would have been easier if Remus could remember details. Instead the whole thing was just a constant bright flash.

Remus shifted in his chair. This was too much. If it were just the sex—if it were just the sex he was remembering, he’d go to bed and pull himself off once or twice and return to his work clearer and cleaner. But it wasn’t just the sex. It was the sex plus everything else, the way they talked for hours, the way Sirius’ eyes looked so intently at Remus as Remus spoke, the things he told Remus about his mother. _Does Sirius make intense eye contact with everyone?_ Remus found himself wondering. _Does he tell everyone about how his mother locked him in his room for an entire day after he admitted he was out late at a Muggle pub?_

Remus dug his fingers into his forehead and the hollows above his eyes. He couldn’t think like that.

It wasn’t that…it wasn’t that he was being down on himself, was it? It was that he’d only met Sirius once. He’d met him once, in a sex shop, and they’d hooked up. He couldn’t…he couldn’t feel this way, not now. It was too soon. And Sirius—he didn’t even know Sirius. Sirius was probably just a very outgoing person. Possibly a narcissist, given how much he talked about himself. Maybe he told everyone about his childhood and family when he first met them. Maybe everyone thought they’d had a special connection after their first day of knowing him.

He just needed to get Sirius out of his head. They were supposed to see each other again, once Sirius owled, and that was great, but Remus needed to dial it down till then. He needed to think of something else.

And, he admitted ruefully, the Portsmouth portkey log was not doing it.

He stood up. Fine. If he wanted to stop thinking of Sirius, he needed to replace him with something equally overwhelming. And Remus was feeling just a bit annoyed with himself, and in something of a self-punishing mood, so he swallowed down the quick pulse of fear at the back of his throat, and headed out of the flat to Madame Mysteria’s.

He wouldn’t have gone back if he thought Sirius would be there again. But who visited a sex shop two days in a row?

This was probably the one place Remus was sure _not_ to meet Sirius. And if the red-haired woman was at the counter—Lily, Sirius’ friend—she wouldn’t know who Remus was, so that wouldn’t matter. He’d slouch past her anyway.

He hovered at the door of Madam Mysteria’s and then pushed his way in. The little bell rang. This time, he went straight to the back room. He kept his head down so he couldn’t see if Lily was there, or if she was looking at him.

Remus came to a stop. The room was empty of people. He took a deep breath. The memory of meeting Sirius there flickered in his mind, but he banished it by examining the display of potions, running his hand along the shelves and touching the bottles gently. He was aroused by the names and descriptions, the illicit, even shocking results they offered, but he was aroused, too, by the potions themselves. Deep red liquid moved like molten lava in one jar; another was clear as water; another was pitch black, so dark Remus couldn’t see through to what was behind it. The slow slide of a silvery tincture within a squat round bottle sent shivers up Remus’ spine.

It wasn’t just the things each of these potions and charms and toys could do, he thought. It was the feeling, there in that room, that there was no limit to what could be done.

Remus wanted—wanted—he didn’t know what, but he was swamped by a thick, hot feeling, like velvet, or warm mud, something close and dense, something he could float in. His cock pulsed, hot, the feeling concentrated there the most, but it in was the rest of him, too, arms legs toes chest nostrils nipples skin, all his skin, mottled with sensation. _Daddy,_ he mouthed, lips shaping the word silently. A thrill ran through him. _Daddy_ was part of it; _Daddy_ was the beginning of it. Remus wanted to drown in this feeling, wanted it to fill up his mouth and throat and nose. Wanted to bend under it. Wanted to say delicious, forbidden words. Wanted…wanted potions that would make him slow and heavy, wanted…wanted his fingertips spelled to the surface of—a desk, his bed, a wall, something, wanted…wanted…he wanted the metaphorical equivalent of the tentacled mass of charmed liquid metal that was writhing and wrapping its way around the neck and torso of a mannequin. Wanted…wanted things he couldn’t articulate, and wasn’t capable of imagining.

He turned to the display of books, the memory of Sirius standing against them looming sharply in his head for a moment. But it dissolved as Remus gently picked up a copy of _Under the Thumb of a Giant: Thinking through Sexual Fantasy and the Limits of Magic._ The book caught his eye because of the title and because of the cover, black with silver lettering, simple, elegant. He flipped to the introduction.

_When I was a child, I had a dream that I was trapped under a giant’s thumb. Even given my small size, an actual giant would not have been large enough to hold me as that one did, the pad of his thumb pressing down on my torso to pin me in place. I struggled and writhed. My heart raced. I was trying to get free, but I did not want to succeed. When I awoke, I found I had had my first wet dream._

_I have considered that dream in detail ever since. What was it that I found arousing? The sensation of being trapped? The knowledge that I was under someone else’s control—literally under their thumb? Or the vast, impossible size of the being that trapped me?_

_A Psychological Healer trained in the thinking of forty or fifty years ago would no doubt identify the giant’s thumb as a phallus, and my dream as an expression of my desire to be taken by, and subsequently to possess, all that the phallus stood for, on an exceptional scale. The thumb would represent both a giant penis, and my outsized desire to be overpowered and to take power._

_I think, though, that the thumb was just that—an impossibly large thumb. The thumb was the limit of the possible. The thumb was pure fantasy._

_With magic, we feel that we can enact any sexual fantasy, more or less safely. It is within our power to blind ourselves, bind ourselves, transform ourselves into another person, give ourselves animal appendages, burn and then heal ourselves, force our orgasms by magic or delay them by magic. We can make lashes whip by themselves, we can make erections linger, we can give our partners permission to turn themselves invisible and sneak up on us in darkened rooms._

_But there is no giant as large as the one in my dream. Engorgement charms, as any schoolchild knows, are successful only up to a certain point, and past that point they fail or, more perilously, threaten the rupture or explosion of the relevant item or person. There are limits to magic._

_This book is about those limits, and about the ways they can frustrate and excite, cause us to despair or delight, spur us on to new heights of magic and new worlds of fantasy. This book is about my quest to think beyond what magic is capable of accomplishing, and to document the effects of this quest on my own erotic life._

Remus’ heart was in his mouth. He pulled himself up from the page, feeling as though he had just hurtled down a deep hole. He wanted this book.

His eyes landed on another nearby text. This one was entitled, _Fucking for the (Not So) Faint of Heart._ It promised “dozens of moving illustrations.” Remus picked it up and flipped through. His eyes landed on a drawing of a couple having sex midair while a third person watched them and held a wand up, presumably maintaining the charm. The third person was masturbating, their black-ink hand moving rhythmically between their legs. Remus swallowed.

He tucked both books under his arm. He wanted to stay for hours, but at the same time he was feeling prickly and too exposed. And he didn’t want to exhaust the shop, to see everything all at once. With a last look at the Subatomic display—he still needed to try out that dildo—he made his way back to the counter.

But when he entered the front room, a very familiar figure was leaning over the counter, laughing with the redheaded saleswoman.

“Oh, shit,” Remus said, before he could stop himself, and then Sirius Black turned and saw him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in terms of content warnings, I should probably add mild ageplay here. There's no roleplaying scenario or anything and neither of them pretends to be a child, so nothing super intense. Sirius just calls Remus a good little boy, like...a lot.

Remus stared at Sirius, wide-eyed. Sirius stared back.

“You didn’t tell me he was here!” Sirius said, swinging his head to look accusingly at the woman behind the counter.

Lily shrugged. “I wasn’t sure it was him.”

“I told you I went home with the guy who bought the Subatomic dildo!”

“Do you think I remember every single customer who comes in?”

“Yes!”

Lily smirked.

Remus watched this exchange with mounting horror.

“I, er…” he said, and both heads swiveled to look at him. He could have sworn that both Sirius’ and Lily’s hair did this unreal sort of flip, black hair and red hair lifting in the air as they turned and then settling gently around their shoulders. They were both _gorgeous._

“I didn’t think you’d be here again,” Remus blurted out. “I wasn’t—trying to—”

“I didn’t think _you’d_ be here again,” Sirius replied. “Oooh, what have you got?”

It took Remus a moment to remember the books under his arms. Then he flushed red. Sirius held out his hand and, face burning, Remus handed them over.

“Oh, that one’s good,” Lily said, leaning over the counter to look. She nodded at _Under the Thumb of a Giant._ “The other one’s more up your alley, though, Sirius.”

Sirius peered at _Fucking for the (Not So) Faint of Heart._ “Er…thanks, I think?”

“I’m Lily, by the way,” said the red-haired woman, holding out her hand for Remus to shake. He did so, reflecting faintly that this was the second stranger he’d shaken hands with in a sex shop in two days.

“I told him your name,” said Sirius. He was paging through the book.

“Well, you didn’t bother to introduce us in person, did you?” Lily smiled at Remus. “Sirius was over at James’ and my place this morning—James is my husband—and he, er, happened to mention you. You’re Remus, right?”

“Yes,” Remus said. He was trying very, very hard to play it cool. But _SIRIUS MENTIONED ME_ was ringing loudly in his head. At the same time, he was trying not to feel mortified that Sirius had apparently referred to him as “the guy who bought the Subatomic dildo.”

“Oh!” Sirius said, face lighting up all of a sudden. “Actually, it’s great you’re here! Leave those books with Lily, I want to show you something.”

Remus blinked. “Oh, er…”

Sirius put the books on the counter and grabbed Remus’ wrist. “Come on.”

“Er…” Remus said, giving Lily a half-apologetic, half-helpless look as he was pulled out of the front room.

“See you in a bit, Remus,” Lily said, waving goodbye with a grin.

Sirius bypassed the grab-bag of the first room and deposited Remus in the second, the one labeled BONDAGE AND S/M. “I thought of something you might be into—that’s why I stopped by the shop today.” He stopped abruptly, a thought clearly occurring to him. “I do work, you know. I’m not just always hanging about sex shops. But my schedule’s a bit irregular—sometimes I go away for a few days at a time, sometimes the museum needs me at odd hours, or on the weekends—”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. I…work from home. But you knew that.”

“Right! For the Department of Magical Transportation.”

Remus felt a pleased flutter at the fact that Sirius had remembered. He nodded.

“Good. Okay. Just wanted to make it clear that I’m not just some randy layabout. Anyway. This is what I wanted to show you.”

He turned to a nearby display and picked up a set of four metal rings. They were lightweight and dull silver and looked as though they might expand or contract. “You said something yesterday, when we were talking. About being nervous about coming here for the first time because you felt—I think you said exposed? Like, you aren’t really embarrassed by what you want but that for some reasoning being seen liking it in public was really hard.”

Remus nodded, heart in his mouth. Hearing Sirius repeat back what he had said pulled at him in sharp and complicated ways.

“Well. I could be totally wrong here and you might want something in completely the opposite direction, but—I wondered if—” He waved the metal rings. “These are cuffs. Once you put them on your wrists and ankles, they shrink to the right size and then they get really heavy. So you’re pinned down until someone says the countercharm. And I was thinking—if you lay out on the bed, on your back, sort of starfished, you know, you’d be…really exposed.”

Remus stared at him. His head felt funny. Sort of far away.

“And I thought you might like that, since you liked—I think you liked—when I made you say that stuff yesterday.” Sirius’ voice lowered just a bit, but he was still loud enough that Remus darted a look around nervously. “You liked feeling uncomfortable, right?”

Slowly, Remus nodded. Sirius was holding up the cuffs, gesturing with them as he spoke in a voice lively with excitement. This was the Sirius he had glimpsed yesterday evening, quick and unselfconscious. It wasn’t the commanding Sirius of the bedroom or the ironically self-deprecating Sirius who apologized for his family history.

Although Remus could imagine the commanding Sirius putting him in the cuffs.

“I would like that,” Remus said softly. A strange clenching was happening in his chest. It wasn’t arousal. He didn’t know what it was. He stared at Sirius, marveling that eyes so dark could appear so bright.

“Ah, great,” Sirius said. He grinned. “I got it right.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you…did.”

“I’ll get these, and you get your books. No, don’t object—they were my idea. Trust me, they’ll be as good for me as for you.”

So Remus bought the books, and Sirius bought the cuffs, and they both said goodbye to Lily, whose grin made Remus blush, and they set a date to see each other again the following night.

Sirius told Remus to strip while he watched. A hot lump rose in Remus’ throat as he pulled his sweater over his head and removed his undershirt and Sirius watched with a still, focused gaze. He unbuttoned his trousers and let them fall around his ankles. He pulled his pants down and Sirius looked hungrily at his cock. Remus breathed through his nose.

“Have you been restrained before?” Sirius asked softly, still sitting on the bed and looking at Remus’ naked body.

Fingers clenching a little at his sides—he was already feeling uncomfortably visible—Remus nodded. “With ropes, not cuffs, though.”

“Anything I should know?”

Remus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Sirius nodded. “All right. Come here, darling.”

Remus came to him quickly, with a rush of nerves and relief. Sirius took his hand and rubbed his thumb along the back of it, looking up at Remus.

“You’re going to be a good boy and let me look at you.”

“Yes,” Remus whispered.

Sirius kissed the inside of his wrist. “Good. Lie down on the bed for me, sweetheart. On your back.”

Remus did. The blanket was soft and cool under his naked skin.

“Spread your arms and legs, please.”

It took a bit of effort for Remus to raise his arms above his head. He felt hot and blushing as he did, a squirm of discomfort in his stomach. He let his legs stretch apart, and then moved his arms apart as well.

“Wider, please.”

Remus swallowed. He pushed his legs and arms out as far as they could go, stretching wrists and ankles towards the corners of the bed.

“Now relax,” Sirius said quietly.

“I can’t,” Remus muttered.

Sirius put a hand on Remus’ chest. “You don’t have to feel comfortable. Just let the tension out of your arms and legs. Otherwise the cuffs will put too much strain on them.”

Remus breathed. That he could do. He let his limbs sink into the mattress, still open wide, just not quite as taut.

“There you go. I’m going to put the cuffs on you now.”

Sirius lifted the dull metal circles from the bedside table, where they were lying on top of a worn paperback, several comics, and a book about Celtic curses. Remus tried to keep breathing normally, but he felt hot and cold all over.

Sirius murmured the activating charm. “You remember what to say if you want them off, right?” Remus nodded. Sirius took one of the cuffs and pulled gently. It enlarged enough to slip onto Remus’ left wrist. When Sirius let it go, it contracted just to the point of snugness, a cold metal reminder on Remus’ skin, and then Remus realized it was getting heavier.

It took fifteen or twenty seconds for it to reach what seemed to be its final weight. As it did, Remus felt his wrist being pressed inexorably into the bed. He let out a startled gasp, flexing his fingers, and Sirius watched carefully, head cocked, till Remus settled.

He pulled up experimentally at his wrist. He couldn’t move it at all. The cuff didn’t pinch or cut off his circulation. It just wouldn’t budge if he tried to lift his hand, as if a ring of concrete had been poured and set right there on the bed.

“Does that feel good?” Sirius asked.

“Yes,” Remus whispered. “God, yes.”

Sirius grasped his free wrist briefly in his hand and leaned in to give Remus a small kiss. “Time for the others, then.”

He slipped the cuffs one by one onto Remus’ other wrist and then his ankles. It was the latter that really made Remus feel what was happening to him. As the last cuff weighed down his foot, the sensation of being exposed started to prickle over his skin. He pulled at his wrists and ankles, but they didn’t budge. An image of how he must look flashed through his mind: naked, immobilized, arms and legs spread wide.

“How does it feel?” Sirius asked softly.

“Erm,” Remus said. He took a few deliberate breaths through his nose to calm himself. “It’s…a lot.”

“You doing okay? You want to keep them on?”

“Yeah.”

Sirius nodded. He sat back, perched with one leg under the other at the foot of the bed. Remus could feel his stare almost like a touch and squirmed, the cuffs solid against his skin.

Sirius leaned forward. He ran a hand down Remus’ chest, not avoiding his scars but not lingering, either.

Remus tried instinctively to move towards him and then whimpered when he found he couldn’t.

“Hush,” said Sirius. “It’s your job to let me look at you now. Let me look, and touch, and do what I want, and you just need to lie there.”

Remus swallowed. He nodded, heart pounding.

“Good.”

Sirius looked and touched—just looked, and then touched light and gentle wherever his hand settled—for a long time. The longer Remus was pinned, the more prickly and strange and hot and embarrassed he felt. The more he was aware of his pulse in his head and wrists and cock, the more he felt choked by the overwhelming sense of being _seen._ Sirius stroked along Remus’ inner thigh, so fucking _tenderly_ ; Remus tried to squirm away, but he couldn’t.

“I—” he gasped. “I just—”

“Shhh,” Sirius said. He stroked Remus’ hair. “I know, darling.”

The word felt wrong, _darling_ , Remus’ wasn’t Sirius’ darling, wasn’t anybody’s darling—his throat constricted and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling at the cuffs.

“Remus.” Sirius stopped, his hand resting lightly on Remus’ chest. It felt like an anchor, but also like a burning brand. Remus didn’t know which one to let it be. He squeezed his eyes shut tight.

“Hey,” Sirius said. “Remus. I need you to talk to me.”

Remus managed to open his eyes. Sirius looked calm, but also concerned.

Remus breathed in through his nose. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t apologize. I just need to know if you’re okay.”

“I…I…”

Sirius shook his head. “Sorry. No. I need to know if you want me to keep going. You don’t have to be okay.”

At this, the knot in Remus’ chest unclenched slightly. He swallowed, trying to fight through the haze that had enveloped his brain.

“Can I…” He breathed. The corners of his eyes prickled hot.

Sirius stroked his chest gently. Remus wanted so badly to let the sensation soothe him.

“Can you what?” Sirius smoothed Remus’ hair back again. It was sweaty; Remus hoped Sirius didn’t mind that it was sweaty. “Tell me, Remus. Anything is okay to tell me.”

Remus could barely get the words out. He didn’t know _why_ ; it was ridiculous to be nervous about this, Sirius already knew—had already done it—but maybe it was a one-time thing, maybe Sirius would be freaked out by Remus wanting it again, so soon—

“I think I’d better take these off,” Sirius said, tapping at the cuffs. “It’s just—we can put them on again, later, if you want, but I don’t feel great keeping on without knowing how you are—”

“No,” Remus gasped out. Just seconds ago he’d thought maybe he did want the cuffs off, maybe he did want to curl into a ball and hide forever, but— “I just…” He made himself say it, squeezing his eyes shut. “Can I…can I call you Daddy again?”

For a second there was silence. Remus had to open his eyes and look, terrified at seeing something he didn’t want on Sirius’ face but more terrified to not know what was there. But Sirius was just blinking at him, looking…confused?

“Of course,” he said. “I—you don’t have to ask permission for that. That’s—I really, really like it when you call me Daddy. I thought you knew.”

Maybe Remus knew. But that didn’t mean he believed it.

“My sweet, sweet boy,” Sirius murmured. He bent down and hovered right in front of Remus’ face. “Give Daddy a kiss?”

Remus nodded, and when Sirius’ lips met his he felt himself crumple as relief swept powerfully over him. He sucked on Sirius’ bottom lip with blind neediness and his naked, stretched-out limbs sank into the bed.

“My poor boy,” Sirius said softly. Remus whimpered at the loss of his mouth and Sirius slipped a thumb between Remus’ lips. Remus sucked gratefully. “It’s so hard for you to let me take care of you.” Sirius smoothed Remus’ hair, forehead, eyebrows, cheeks as Remus sucked at the thumb of his other hand.

After awhile, Sirius pulled back. “It’s all right. Daddy’s right here.” He sounded a little breathless. He moved away, and Remus breathed, making himself trust that Sirius—that Daddy—would do what was right for him. Sirius kissed Remus’ wrist, just above and just below the cuffs. Then he moved farther down and kissed Remus’ ankle. Remus shivered. Sirius paused, then kissed the sole of Remus’ naked foot.

“So good,” Sirius murmured, his warm breath tickling the arch of Remus’ foot. Sirius nosed at it, breathing in. Remus’ head spun. He felt like it might float off his neck and up into the air.

Sirius sat back on his haunches. Remus could only sort of see him, craning his neck to get a glimpse.

“All right, my darling,” Sirius said. He was definitely breathless now. “Daddy has something big to ask you now, okay?”

Remus’ heart sped up. “Okay,” he whispered.

“This is something that would make Daddy very, very happy. But it might be a little uncomfortable for you, sweetheart. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Remus said. He really did feel a little faint.

“Daddy would like…” Sirius took a breath. “Daddy would very much like to put his fingers inside your little arsehole. Do you think you can handle that, darling?”

Remus’ cock jumped. He felt—Merlin, it was strange how nervous he felt; he had been fucked dozens of times with much more than a finger. But he felt a trembling sort of trepidation, heart in his throat, as he whispered. “Yes. I…yes, Daddy.”

Sirius’s hand clenched briefly where it was resting on Remus’ thigh. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Remus said. “Yes.” He let himself say it. “Yes, Daddy, please put your fingers in my arsehole. Just…go slow?”

Sirius sucked in a breath. “Good boy,” he growled, and surged up to kiss Remus wetly on the mouth.

He fished a little vial out of the bedside table and let Remus watch as he poured some over his fingers. “This one feels very, very soft,” Sirius said. “Soft and gentle for my little boy.”

Remus’ legs were already spread as wide as they could go. He felt strangely helpless as Sirius reached for him, reached under his cock and found his crack. Sirius’ fingers were slippery and wet and—he had been right—so, so soft. He felt along Remus’ crack until his fingers found Remus’ hole.

Remus’ breathing stopped and then sped up. Sirius’ fingers felt so—so—so soft, and so big, and a little—a little invasive. Remus couldn’t move, couldn’t squirm away, as Sirius pressed gently on the little dip of skin around his arsehole.

“Oh my god,” Sirius whispered. “You feel…” He fell silent, his fingers probing all the while.

“Please,” Remus croaked, surprising himself. “Please. Please, Daddy, please…”

“Please what, my sweetheart?” Sirius’ big fingers kept circling.

Remus whimpered. “Please put your fingers in me. Please, Daddy. Please.”

“Is that what you want? Already?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Shh,” Sirius said. “All right. All right, my love. Such a desperate boy.”

“Yes,” Remus babbled. He couldn’t seem to stop. “I need you. I need it. Need your fingers in me, Daddy, your big strong fingers, Daddy please, please—”

“So needy.” Sirius bent and placed a tiny kiss on the tip of Remus’ erect cock. “Of course, darling, I’ll do whatever you need. But, my love, it might hurt, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Remus whispered. Somewhere, deep and distant within him, he knew it wouldn’t hurt, couldn’t, not just a finger or two. But he felt wrapped up in the fantasy of it—his tiny little hole, and Daddy’s big big fingers.

“So brave,” Sirius murmured. He slipped his pointer finger, still wet with the velvet-soft lube, into the dip of Remus’ hole, pushing just a tiny bit, not enough to overcome the resistance of Remus’ body to being entered. “Such a brave little boy.”

He pushed. True to his word, he took it slow—so slow the wait was almost excruciating.

“You’re very tight, darling,” Sirius said. “I’ll have to work you open. It’s going to take quite awhile, I’m afraid.”

“I—” Remus’ heart seized. “Is that—I’m sorry, Daddy, I—”

“No, no,” Sirius said quickly. “Daddy loves how tight you are. And it’s not your fault. Little boys have tight little holes. That’s why Daddy needs to open you up.”

For a second Remus wasn’t sure if he’d come, right then and there, without anything touching his cock. He let out a cry, legs and arms tensing up, wanting to spasm, unable to under the weight of the cuffs. He clenched his fingers and toes, breathing deep.

“Holy shit,” Sirius said, so quietly Remus thought maybe his wasn’t supposed to hear. For a second, his finger stopped moving, buried barely up to the first knuckle in Remus’ arsehole.

Then Sirius started up again. He moved steadily, persistently, so slow and sure that Remus felt dizzy again. _Daddy is opening you up_ , Remus told himself over and over again; it was the only coherent thing he could really think. Each time the words crossed his brain, whatever arousal had dripped away during Sirius’ long entrance into his body shot back up again.

“I’m almost there,” Sirius said. “Up to the second knuckle. I’m going to push home, okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay,” Remus answered faintly.

Sirius pushed. Remus felt the sudden thrust like a shock all through his body. He cried out.

“I’m in,” Sirius said. His other hand was clenched around Remus’ calf. “I’m all the way inside you, love.”

Remus nodded helplessly. Sirius’ single finger felt like _so much._

“Can you handle a second finger, darling?”

Remus nearly sobbed. “Yes, Daddy. Please.”

“Oh, god. You’re so—” Sirius breathed. “You’re so, so sweet. Such a good, sweet little boy. You do everything Daddy tells you, don’t you?”

“Everything,” Remus said desperately. “Anything, Daddy.”

Sirius pulled his finger out of Remus. Remus yelped. Sirius lined up two fingers against Remus’ hole and began to push in.

“Daddy’s perfect little boy.”

Remus cried a little when Sirius took the cuffs off. He buried his face in the pillow, feeling helpless and strange, and curled his knees all the way into his chest.

Sirius stroked his hair and snaked an arm around Remus, pulling Remus’ back close against his chest. For a second Remus didn’t want him, didn’t want to let him. But he felt so _good._ It felt so good to let Sirius take care of him.

He relaxed into Sirius’ arms and drifted in and out of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain)!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the additional story tags.
> 
> The sex toy used in this chapter is the brainchild of [bigblackdog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigblackdog/pseuds/bigblackdog). Many thanks, I'm sure from both me and readers alike.

Remus told himself he should back off a little, after the cuffs. It had been so much, so intense, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About Sirius. _Twice, you’ve slept together twice,_ he told himself over and over, but he felt as though he’d known Sirius’ hands, Sirius’ smile, for so much longer. _He doesn’t know about you yet_ , he told himself, and though this thought gripped him with dread it didn’t banish Sirius from his consciousness. _You need to slow the fuck down,_ he told himself, but two days later Sirius invited him over again, and Remus couldn’t say no.

Sirius gave him pasta and red wine and they laughed about Sirius’ memories of getting into scrapes with James and Lily and Peter at Hogwarts. Remus hadn’t met the two men yet and had barely met Lily but he felt he was getting to know them. It was a peculiar thing, getting to know someone only through Sirius’ eyes. It was so clear he worshiped his friends. Remus wondered if they would seem smaller when he actually met them. If he actually met them. He sipped his wine to cover the fact that he was flustered by the thought. Was it presumptuous to think he might get to meet Sirius’ friends?

After dinner, when the conversation had lulled, Sirius put a hand on Remus’ knee. Remus looked at him, their eyes locking on each other’s. Absurd, Remus thought, that this was all it took to send a rush of arousal straight to his groin.

“I had a thought,” said Sirius carefully. “About something we might try.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Sirius smiled a crooked little smile—almost bashful—and scratched behind his neck. “But, er. It might be—it might not be something you want. Which is fine.”

“Okay.” Another rush of arousal washed through Remus.

“I—well. Let me just—show you?”

Remus followed Sirius to the bedroom, heart racing. Visions of the sex shop were swimming in his mind, the intangible sense of something he couldn’t quite imagine, something strange and luxurious and forbidden, trailing around him like a miasma. He waited, trying to appear calm, as Sirius rooted around in his closet.

“It’s—sorry, this isn’t helpful at all, is it.” Sirius was holding a bedsheet. It looked very much like a normal bedsheet. It was white and very plain.

But somehow Remus wasn’t disappointed. Somehow, the innocuousness of the object sent a thrill of anticipation, nearly fear, coiling around his chest.

“It, er. It’s self-cleaning. Vanishes liquids after ninety seconds. And I was thinking—I’d really like if—if you.”

Sirius took a breath. Remus was holding his.

“I’d really like it if you pissed on me.”

A rush of blood rose to Remus’ head, so intense he felt dizzy. Sirius was looking at him, smiling nervously. “If you don’t want to—” he began, but Remus cut him off.

“We could do that.”

It wasn’t something Remus had really fantasized about before. And that—that was—there was a passage in that book, _Under the Thumb of a Giant,_ that had hooked right into Remus’ heart and given a sharp painful tug:

_There was always, for me, the sense that there was a whole world of unseen acts and sensations just beyond my reach. The closest I ever came to piercing that veil was when something, whether quotidian or obscure or outlandish, suddenly appeared to me as sexual when it had not before. It was like—and this is the closest I can come to describing the feeling of it, though it is not very close—like peeling the skin off a grape and touching its soft slick underbelly._

“Yeah?” Sirius asked, sounding tentative. “You sure?”

Remus nodded, throat too tight to speak. Sirius must have seen the desire on his face because he relaxed, a full grin spreading across his face. “Great. Okay. I—” He took a breath and laughed a little. “Are you ready? Am I going too fast? Can I just—start?”

Remus nodded again. “Please,” he whispered.

Sirius stepped quickly up to him and kissed him on the mouth. Hand still on Remus’ cheek, he took a breath. The transformation was incredible, Remus thought, the way Sirius slid into this other self, like coming suddenly into focus. His spine straightened and all his restless energy compacted rapidly into a burning core.

“Lay this out on the bed for me, will you?” he asked, holding out the self-cleaning sheet. “Tuck it into the bed frame so it doesn’t shift, all right?”

Remus nodded. Sirius kissed his temple. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

When Sirius left the room Remus put two fingers on the pulse point in his neck. His heart was racing. Silently, he shifted the sheet till he could grasp it by the corners and lifted it in the air, letting it rise balloonlike and then settle gentle over the top of Sirius’ bed. There was something soothing about the sight. Remus went around the bed and tucked the sheet into the frame, around the sides of the mattress. It felt like an ordinary sheet. He ran his hand gently over it.

“That looks good,” Sirius said from the doorway. He came towards Remus and gestured for him to sit. Sirius sat next to him. Remus stared at the thing he was holding in his outstretched hand.

“Take it.”

Remus took the glass of water, careful not to spill any over the brim. It was so full it was difficult to hold it steady.

“Drink it, please.”

Remus was hyperaware of the water as it filled his mouth and poured down his throat, hyperaware of his convulsive swallows, of the slosh of liquid in his belly. Sirius watched him drink. Remus had to pause for breath partway through.

“Take your time,” Sirius said. “But you do need to drink all of it.”

Remus nodded. He sipped and sipped until his stomach felt uncomfortably full, and until the glass was empty.

“Good boy.” Sirius put the glass on the bedside table. “Now lie back for Daddy.”

Sirius lay on top of Remus and kissed him slowly. He kissed him as if he meant to consume him, take him in his mouth and swallow him down, but slowly, savoring. Sirius’ absorption in the kissing was overwhelming. Remus felt, somehow, both the absolute focus of his attention and as if Remus were beside the point entirely. Sirius ran his tongue over Remus’ teeth, into the corners of his lips, sucking at him and pushing himself as deep as he could go. It made Remus feel like all he was was teeth and lips and tongue and mouth. He opened obediently for Sirius, letting him kiss for as long as he wanted.

Sirius took his time. Eventually he undressed them both, pausing often to kiss the newly bare crook of Remus’ elbow or the hollow at his hip. Underneath all this kissing and touching—this long slow contact that made Remus feel as if he were drowning in thick swathes of velvet—was the bright copper thread of knowledge that all this was leading up to Remus’ piss on Sirius’ hands.

He shuddered as Sirius finally pulled his feet gently from his crumpled-up trousers and pants. Sirius ran his hand over Remus’ belly, then lower, pressing down just a little.

Remus gasped. There was not yet any sense of urgency in his bladder. But Sirius’ touch, firm, sure, probing, made something in him twist and curl with need and fear.

Sirius took Remus’ cock into his mouth. It was like the kissing, only Sirius was farther away and Remus didn’t even have to respond, just lie there and let the feeling wash through him. Sirius licked and sucked him so, so slowly and so, so thoroughly. Remus’ body hummed with arousal but that wasn’t urgent, either; he wasn’t even fully hard. Sirius nosed at his groin and moved his head down, licking at Remus’ balls. Remus held his breath as Sirius took them into his mouth. Remus’ fingers clenched, nails digging into his palms.

Sirius licked back and down and his fingers reached in to part Remus’ crack and his tongue slid to Remus’ arsehole. Remus bit his lip hard as Sirius, with that same slow absorption, sucked and licked and pushed at him there.

By now Remus could recognize a dull ache in his bladder that meant the water had found its target. It occupied his attention more and more, competing with Sirius’ tongue on his arsehole. But Remus felt helpless against it; there was no promise of release, no sense that he was close to letting it out. He wasn’t sure he could have if he tried.

Sirius sat back on his haunches, breathing hard, face slicked with spit. His eyes met Remus’.

“Hello, darling,” he said softly.

“Hi,” Remus managed.

“Is my little boy starting to feel full up?”

The words stung Remus in places he couldn’t name. He tried to formulate a reply and realized that he’d gone deep under without realizing it. He nodded.

Sirius hummed his approval and ran his hand over Remus’ belly again. He pressed down, harder than he had before.

His touch sent a burning throb through Remus’ bladder. Sirius’ gaze was so steady on Remus’ face that Remus shut his eyes tight. Shame welled up hot in his throat.

“I don’t know if I can—” he started, and, eyes still closed, he felt Sirius move to sit close to him.

Sirius’ hand touched Remus’ hair. Remus made himself open his eyes. Sirius’ cock stood erect and dripping next to Remus’ face, but Sirius didn’t seem to pay it any mind. Remus realized he still wasn’t fully hard, or he had gone a little bit soft, he wasn’t sure which, and a wave of panic crashed against him.

“Whoa,” Sirius said. “Hey, hey, hey.” He put a hand on Remus’ chest and pressed a little bit. “Daddy’s got you.”

Sirius’ hand helped. But not enough. Remus wasn’t hard and Remus wasn’t going to be able to do it, he couldn’t pee on Sirius, he couldn’t—

“Remus,” Sirius said clearly. He moved his hand up to Remus’ neck and just held it there, with pressure so faint it didn’t impede Remus’ breathing. “Remus.”

Sirius’ grip on his neck did what a hand on his chest couldn’t. Remus breathed, panic subsiding, and let Sirius hold him.

“You’re perfect,” Sirius told him. “You’re doing exactly what Daddy wants. I promise.”

It wasn’t something Remus was capable of believing, not fully, but the words helped anyway, penetrating through the haze swirling around inside his head.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” he whispered. “Sirius, I—”

“Daddy,” Sirius said calmly.

Remus breathed. “Daddy,” he said. The word made him feel so small, so helpless—but small and helpless in a way that wasn’t his fault. The helplessness of somebody who just needed help. “I don’t know if I can do it, Daddy.”

The word was magic. Saying it aloud, saying it twice, was like a spell. Remus could feel the effects of it all through his body as it enacted a sort of alchemy within him, transforming real fear and embarrassment into the plea of a child who trusts that someone bigger and stronger will take care of them, fix them, forgive them. His muscles unclenched. He could have cried.

Sirius moved his hand from Remus’ throat, rubbing it in soft circles over his chest. “It’s all right, my love. Daddy knows you can do it.”

“But—”

“You’ll do it for Daddy,” Sirius said patiently. “And if it’s too hard, your body will do it for Daddy eventually anyway. Even if you fight it, my love. There will come a point when every muscle clenching and every ounce of will won’t be able to hold it back. You won’t be able to stop it, darling. And Daddy will be here when it happens.”

Remus squeezed his eyes shut, relief and terror flooding through him. His body would betray him—would save him. All he had to do was wait.

The ache in his bladder intensified as Sirius bent down to suck at Remus’ nipples. One of Sirius’ hands was between his own legs, rubbing his cock gently. Part of Remus wanted to be the one with his hand on Sirius’ cock—felt he should be—but he couldn’t and Sirius wasn’t asking, so he tried to banish the worry and concentrate on the pressure in his gut.

After a long several minutes, Sirius’ hand left his own cock and found its way down to Remus’. He fingered the head gently, sliding over the slit.

“Do you think you can try for me now?” he asked.

Remus’ chest felt so tight. He nodded, unable to speak. Sirius sat back on his haunches. After a moment, he reached out and raised Remus up to a sitting position, supporting his back. Remus gripped Sirius’ arms with trembling hands. Sirius put one upturned hand in front of Remus’ half-erect cock. Waiting.

Remus took a deep breath, shaking. He needed to pee. The glass of water had run through him and now he was brimming, overfull. His bladder ached. He took another deep breath and unclenched his muscles.

Nothing happened. He breathed again, in and out, releasing tension he hadn’t even known he was carrying. But his bladder stayed full and aching.

“I can’t,” he gritted out. Frustration clawed at him, sharp nails in his sides. He pushed, trying to force it. The pressure expelled gas from his arsehole instead and his face burned.

“Oh, my boy,” Sirius said. His face went soft with sympathy. “Oh, my poor boy. It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Remus gasped out. “Why can’t I—”

“It’s hard,” Sirius said again. “It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry.” Remus felt a little wild. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Hush.” Sirius placed a hand on Remus’ bladder and pressed down. Remus strained. Nothing.

“I—”

“Hush,” Sirius said again. He massaged Remus’ bladder. There was no urgency in his fingers. “You’re perfect, my love.”

“No—”

“Yes. This is what I wanted.” Sirius bent and kissed the sweaty patch of hair at Remus’ temple. “To see you struggling for it. Trying so hard to let go for me.”

“I want to,” Remus said, tears spilling from his eyes, “I want to, I promise—”

“I know.” Sirius hand kneaded at his belly. The ache was spreading up from Remus’ bladder, somehow, into his torso, and down into his thighs. His body was a wire-string, taut, quivering. “You try so hard for me, darling. My good boy. My baby boy.” He kissed Remus’ temple again. “I want you to lie back down, all right?”

Remus nodded helplessly. He was a mess, face wet and nose dripping snot, sweat plastering his forehead, and this knot tangled in his gut, his body refusing to cut it loose. He lay back on the bed. Sirius bent his head and took Remus’ cock into his mouth again.

Remus cried out. The sensation was so strange. He squirmed. He didn’t know what he felt as Sirius lapped at his cock, his impossible, stubborn cock. He wasn’t sure he was turned on anymore, just wound so tightly he was crying a little with the need for release. It was a kind of release he couldn’t have named, though, not the bright burst of orgasm but a shameful rush he was so afraid of he couldn’t let it go.

But Sirius didn’t seem to mind. He licked at Remus’ cock and sucked his balls and kissed the insides of his thighs and slowly, slowly, Remus felt the fullness inside of him pushing insistently against its walls. It was expanding inside him, sharp and hot but also constant, the sensation so unlike anything Remus was used to, and the fear that still gripped him started ebbing away. It was happening, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“I think—” he scraped out, and Sirius raised his head.

“Yeah?”

“I think,” Remus said. There was a pulsing low in his belly now. He didn’t try to hold in or push out. He couldn’t really, didn’t have control over the muscles anymore.

Sirius stroked Remus’ cock gently and Remus felt that hot burning sensation pushing right to the edge.

“Piss on Daddy,” Sirius said softly. “Let go for Daddy.”

Remus nodded, tears once again squeezing out his eyes. After a long moment of nothing happening but Sirius watching him, he started to feel frustration rise again in his chest. But then—independent of his brain, with no further warning, no thought or will from Remus—he began to pee.

Sirius sucked in his breath. “That’s my boy,” he whispered, sounding strained, and he put his hands out and Remus pissed on them, a hot stream he couldn’t moderate or stop. “That’s my boy, my perfect boy,” Sirius murmured over and over as, exhausted, Remus lay back and rode it out, his body heavy with relief and the knowledge that there was absolutely nothing else he could do. The stream of piss poured steadily out of him and he could feel it soaking the sheets, trickling back underneath him and spattering on his legs as it ran into Sirius’ cupped hands. Time felt suspended, eternal; Remus would never stop; he would always be here, in this helpless golden moment, pissing into Sirius’ hands.

But the last drops finally came, weak spurts, emptying Remus out till he was light and hollow. Sirius wiped his hands on the sheet and then, all at once, the wetness was gone. The sheet was dry.

Remus was almost sorry about it.

He couldn’t have said how long it was before they made it to the shower, where Sirius held him up and washed his hair and wiped a wet washcloth between Remus’ legs, cleaning him gently as if Remus couldn’t do it himself. The slide of the fabric was shockingly intimate.

Eventually, they returned to bed, the self-cleaning sheet stripped and folded and returned to the closet. Remus felt tired in a way he hadn’t in a long time—no aches, no worries, no bone-deep exhaustion; just the sweet sleepiness of the small child once the monsters have been chased out from beneath the bed.

“Thank you,” Sirius murmured. “Thank you for doing that.”

The absurdity of Sirius thanking _him_ was laughable, and Remus wanted to tell him that. But he was so soft and tired that he couldn’t form the sentences required, so he tucked himself up against Sirius and murmured “you’re welcome” as he drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain)!


	7. Chapter 7

Remus was startlingly okay the next morning. He woke before Sirius, drifting out of hazy sleep and blinking up at the white sun-dappled ceiling. The memory of what they had done the night before crept into his consciousness. He waited to feel embarrassed. As the memories crystalized—the tense holding back, the rush of release, the hot liquid pouring down Sirius’ fingers—a long slow flush worked its way from deep in his belly to his cheeks. But the flush was not the syrupy half-pleasurable, half-painful wash of shame Remus had thought he might feel. It was simply warmth: the warmth of being seen, and known, and cared for.

He tipped his head to one side and smiled at Sirius’ sleeping face. His mouth was open a little and his hair was mussed. Affection gripped Remus by the heart, squeezing tight. Little flares of hope burst and burned inside him.

Sirius soft-boiled a couple of eggs and cut slices of slightly-burned toast into soldiers. Remus’ mother had fed him dosa with his morning tea when he was a child, but sometimes on the weekend his father had made eggs and soldiers. He wondered if Sirius associated the meal with childhood. Had his mother prepared meals, or had his family had a cook? Or perhaps Hogwarts had served up perfectly goopy egg yolks and crisp regiments of toast.

Whatever the case, there was something about the choice of food that made Remus feel peculiarly moved. Even the blackened edges of the bread, which Remus surreptitiously scraped into his napkin, made him want to kiss Sirius on the mouth.

An owl tapped at the window with the _Daily Prophet_ and Sirius went to open it. Remus sipped his cup of sweet, milky tea—an indulgence he generally did not permit himself at home—and thought about the way Sirius had wiped so gently between his legs in the shower. _Maybe,_ he thought, and he didn’t let himself finish the sentence, but he held the word in his head: _maybe._

Sirius pulled the page with the Quidditch news out of the _Prophet_ and offered Remus the rest of the paper. He took it, flipping idly through updates on the French Minister for Magic’s visit and the latest Department of Muggle Relations appointment. Then he reached page 4.

_WIZENGAMOT MEMBER PROPOSES STRICTER WEREWOLF HOUSING LAWS_

_New legislation requiring prospective tenants to disclose their werewolf status to prospective landlords during the rental process has been proposed by Cygnus Black, Senior Member of the Wizengamot. According to Black, this law would increase the safety of wizards living in the proximity of werewolves and protect landlords from potential damage to property and loss of income from werewolves unable or unwilling to pay their rent. Furthermore, the law would require landlords to notify current tenants of the werewolf status of any new tenants._

_“People have a right to know,” said Black on the floor of the Wizengamot yesterday. “They have a right to know if their children are in danger, and to make the choice to_

“Remus.” Sirius’ voice came as if from far away and through a thick mist. “Remus. Are you all right?”

He sounded alarmed. Remus, who was not breathing properly, noted Sirius’ tone but could do nothing about it. He stared at the paper. It was possible his heart had stopped beating.

“What—” Sirius grabbed the _Prophet_ out of Remus’ hands. “What the hell did you just read? You look—”

Sirius stopped. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, shit. I—fuck. My stupid fucking—” His fingers gripped tight, wrinkling the edges of the paper. “Cygnus is my uncle. He’s—he’s vile, but at least he hasn’t got as much power as he thinks, he can raise a stink but usually his proposals don’t pass because people don’t trust him—”

“I need that paper back, Sirius,” Remus said. His voice sounded calm, but that was only because everything felt flat and distant. “I need to read the rest of it.”

“Please don’t, I promise, there’s nothing worth reading that comes from Cygnus—”

“Sirius.”

At long last Sirius seemed to realize something was wrong besides the general awfulness of his family. He stilled, and something—some small flutter of a thought—passed across his face. With it, Remus’ shock began to wear off, and his blood started to roar in his ears.

“Remus?”

“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.” All at once Remus’ throat was closing up. He felt like thick bands were constricting his chest. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. Blindly, he put his napkin on the table and pushed back his chair. “Please just let me leave.”

“Are you—” Sirius looked down at the paper, then up again at Remus. “Remus, are you saying that you’re—you’re—”

“Yes,” said Remus, through the tightness in his throat. Adrenaline had kicked in and was pumping through his veins. He stood, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. “I’m just going to go, okay?”

“What—what—no!” Sirius pushed back his chair and made a move toward Remus. Remus flinched. Sirius stopped, hurt flashing across his face. He stepped back.

“I’m not like them,” he said woodenly. He was digging his fingernails into his palms.

The impulse to run was still pounding through Remus, clouding his brain. He shook his head as if to clear it. “Not like who?”

“My family.” Sirius’ face was set, stonelike, in a sort of grimace. “I fucking promise, Remus, I know that doesn’t help, but—”

“What are you talking about?” Remus didn’t have control over his mouth and the words, frustrated, spilled out without his bidding.

“I don’t—I know my uncle is the one who’s proposing this stupid law—which I promise isn’t going to pass, really, really it won’t—but I don’t think like him, like them, I don’t—”

Understanding cut through some of the fog and urgency slowing Remus’ brain. He stared at Sirius.

“ _Please_ don’t assume—” Sirius began.

“I’m—” Remus swallowed. “I’m a werewolf, Sirius, do you understand that?”

The corners of Sirius’ eyes and lips tightened briefly. Remus tried not to feel the stab of hurt he knew was coming.

“Yes,” Sirius said. “I know. And it must be really fucked up that my family is the one doing this—”

“I’m a _werewolf._ ” Remus stared at him. He felt almost angry, for reasons he didn’t understand.

Sirius stared back.

“Are you not getting that?” Remus’ voice was rising. Having suppressed the flight instinct, his body was now using all the adrenaline still pumping through his system to prepare for a fight. “Don’t you understand what that means? What you’ve been sleeping with?”

Sirius’ mouth gaped open and shut.

“Do you think your family are the only ones who hate us?” Remus’ breath came hard and fast.

“I pissed on your hand and called you _Daddy_ and—and I just—I need to know what you’re going to do about it, whether you’re going to let me leave and if I need to plan on losing my job and—”

“Holy fuck.” Sirius looked as though he’d been slapped. His eyes widened, shocked, a rim of white around the irises, and his mouth hung open. He made a sharp move towards Remus and, instinctively, Remus flinched back again.

“Oh fuck,” Sirius breathed, and very slowly reached out a hand. He lowered himself to the ground, crouching down beside Remus, and carefully placed his hand on Remus’ own. He tugged gently, pulling Remus back into his chair.

Remus sat, going all at once as blank and flat as he had when he’d seen the newspaper headline. His hand, where Sirius’ lay on top of it, warm and solid, felt detached from his body.

Sirius bent his head and kissed Remus’ bare knee.

Remus stared down at him.

Sirius looked up, lips still grazing Remus’ skin, and said, “I think I’m in love with you.”For a long moment, Remus was immobile. And then a switch flipped. He lost it all at once, crumpling, tears gushing from his eyes. His breaths came so shallowly that he started to feel faint, and put his head quickly on the table.

“Please let me,” Sirius said, arms hovering beside Remus, “please let me,” and Remus, helpless, sobbing, managed to nod. Sirius’s strong hands wrapped around Remus’ torso and elbow and Sirius said, “Okay, okay, sweetheart, let’s get you to the couch, okay? Yeah? Just—that’s good, yeah, let me help you,” and murmuring gently he led Remus to the couch.

Remus curled up on himself, shoved up against the armrest. A hot miserable lump weighed down his stomach. He put his hands over his face. “You don’t hate me?” The words came thick from his throat and he hated himself, a little, for letting them out. But he had to know, he felt raw and vulnerable and disbelieving and he had to know—

“Oh, god no,” Sirius said. “Oh my god.” He pressed Remus’ snotty, slimy face into his shoulder.

“I’m getting your pajamas wet,” Remus said, a little frantically. Sirius laughed, but it hadn’t been a joke. Remus tried to pull away but Sirius held him there, stroking his hair.

“I chain myself up at the full moon,” Remus blurted out, trying to make the words as clear as possible despite his mouth still resting against Sirius’ shoulder. “I can’t get a normal job. You get that, right, like—it’s just—”

“That’s fucking appalling,” Sirius said. His fingers clenched momentarily.

“No, no,” said Remus desperately, “I just—you have to understand, that’s what my life is like—and if you—if we—it’s a big deal—it’ll affect you, Sirius—”

“Oh,” said Sirius softly. “Yeah. Remus, I get that. I mean, I don’t—obviously I don’t know what it’s like for you, I’m not saying I—but I’m not just—I know that it’s a big deal—look, can you—can you look at me? For just a second?”

Remus wasn’t sure he could. He breathed into Sirius’ shoulder and sniffed wetly and then, feeling Sirius’ hand on his chin, gentle and questioning, let Sirius lift up his head. He blinked at Sirius, feeling puffy and miserably frightened and pathetically grateful all at once.

“Listen. I know it’s absurd,” said Sirius, “I know we’ve barely known each other for any time at all. But I meant it. I think—I think I’m in love with you. Honestly. And I don’t know how you feel, but…”

Remus knew he was in love with Sirius. He’d known it since the words came out of Sirius’ mouth. He should have known it before then. He’d only been pretending it wasn’t true.

“I hate that I’m being like this,” Remus said, swallowing. He wiped his hand across his tear-streaked face. “I’m sorry.”

“God, you don’t—don’t apologize.” Sirius raised a hesitant hand and then cupped Remus’ face, brushing a couple stray tears off his cheek. “So…” he said. “Er. It was okay to say that? Not too soon, or too much?”

Remus shook his head vigorously. “It wasn’t too much. I—I—” He couldn’t say it. “I think I feel…something similar.”

The smile that lit up Sirius’ face was so bright Remus had to look away. It was hard to believe he’d put it there.

The adrenaline was draining out of him. He felt as exhausted and hollowed out as he had after the previous night’s shower. He had the impulse to curl up so his head rested on Sirius’ lap, but suppressed it. Then he took a deep breath. He let himself lie down and let his head fall against Sirius’ knee. Sirius put his hand on Remus’ head. Remus closed his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so please note the added tags and that this chapter does contain some new content warnings re: discussion of violence against minoritized groups. See just below if you want more specifics.
> 
> Content warnings: chapter includes a reference to British colonialism in India that mentions corporal punishment of children, as well as mentions of hate crimes against werewolves that pretty strongly resemble homophobic hate crimes.
> 
> Take care of yourselves! <3
> 
> I have to mention [bigblackdog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigblackdog/pseuds/bigblackdog) again in this chapter--a lot of these ideas came out of discussions we've had, and I wouldn't have been able to write it without her thoughts and perspective.

Three days later, Remus didn’t recognize his life anymore. It was full of things he’d never believed he could actually have. A boyfriend. Regular, really good sex. Laughter over meals and the peculiar feeling of needing to ask for a few hours alone. And someone who knew—someone who knew what Remus was. Someone who wasn’t his parents or Ministry of Magic officials who kept their distance, distaste barely masked, as they accepted his registration and travel forms.

He finally went back to his flat after staying at Sirius’ for several nights in a row because Sirius had to go north for a couple of days on a tomb excavation, and because Remus needed to check in with himself to make sure he wasn’t having some sort of extended hallucination. He lay on his back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, where a spider had spun its web in his absence.

_This is all new,_ he warned himself. _This could all fall apart so easily._

But after a moment, he broke out into a wide grin and covered his face, trying not to giggle.

Remus went back to Sirius’ flat the day after Sirius returned from his work trip. He’d have Sirius over to his at some point, surely, but there was no need for it yet, no need for Sirius to see the cramped room and faded bedspread. Remus’ stomach was fluttering as he approached. He tried to tell himself that none of the butterflies were born of an lingering fear that Sirius would have come to his senses in his absence, but it wasn’t true.

Sirius met him at the door with a warm kiss. Remus breathed in his scent and felt himself relax. He smiled, a little shyly, and Sirius pulled him in.

It wasn’t till after dinner, when Sirius’ stories about angry sheep grazing atop the tomb he’d helped excavate and an insufferable coworker’s insistence on dating their finds a half-century too early had petered out, that Remus noticed anything amiss. It was in the way that Sirius kissed him. Sirius was usually gentle, but gentle in a different way. Normally, that gentleness was laced with firmness and certainty and hunger. Tonight it came off more as hesitation.

A brief flutter of panic passed through Remus— _what if he has changed his mind, has thought better of all this?_ —but he had to admit to himself that this explanation felt somehow off. Sirius wasn’t hesitant to kiss Remus. Remus knew the particular kind of hesitation that signaled an inability to truly believe that lycanthropy wasn’t contagious, whatever the literature said; Sirius would be avoiding his gaze and his teeth if that were the case. But he wasn’t. His tongue brushed over Remus’ incisors and he held him as close as ever. Sirius wasn’t hesitating to touch Remus. Sirius was hesitating to take control.

Remus didn’t mind that, exactly. It was just so different from their usual dynamic that he felt wrong-footed, even confused. He pushed his tongue into Sirius’ mouth and Sirius opened wider for him, letting him lead.

“Are you all right?” Remus asked, finally. They were still at the dining table. Usually they moved a lot faster than this, sharp kisses growing urgent and Sirius directing them quickly towards the bedroom or sliding his hands under Remus’ clothes. But Sirius hadn’t yet made a move to push the kissing any further. For a second Remus entertained the idea that Sirius just wanted to kiss for a long time. It was possible. But it felt more like Sirius was being…polite.

“Yes, I’m good!” said Sirius quickly. He smiled at Remus. “Yes, of course.”

“Okay.” Remus paused. “Do you want to go to bed?”

“Absolutely,” said Sirius. He sounded genuinely enthusiastic. Remus watched him, puzzled, as he got up from the table and waited for Remus to lead the way.

Remus sat on Sirius’ bed while he took a moment to use the loo. Remus stared after him, frowning. He could admit now that part of him had been afraid that Sirius might have changed his mind after a couple of days apart; but, insecure as he was, he couldn’t quite read whatever this was as that. He gazed absently around the room and his eye caught on something sticking out from under the bed. It was the corner of a large book, red and leather bound.

Curiously, Remus pulled it out. He read the title.

_They Called Us Half-Breeds: A History of Discrimination and Resistance._

Startled, Remus looked to the shut door of the bathroom. He flipped to the book’s table of contents. There were sections on mermaids, giants, centaurs, vampires…and werewolves.

Suddenly suspicious, Remus bent down again and peered under the bed. Five or six more books were piled on top of each other, some closed, some facedown and splayed open. He got to his knees and pulled them out. He read their titles one by one.

_Pureblood Supremacy through the Ages_

_The Sun Never Sets: Wizarding Complicity in the British Empire_

_Five Pureblood Families: Avery, Black, Gaunt, Lestrange, and Malfoy_

_Dark Magic: a Racial History of the Unforgivable Curses,_ which was open to a chapter called “Cruciatus in India.”

And lastly, _The War on Werewolves._

Remus stared at them.

He heard Sirius emerge from the bathroom behind him.

“Oh.” Sirius sounded embarrassed. “Yeah. I—er. I was doing some reading.”

“I see that.”

Remus flipped through _Five Pureblood Families._ A wedding-day portrait of Walburga and Orion Black, Sirius’ parents, stared up at him haughtily. He pulled another of the books toward him and, struck by a thought, turned to the index. B for Black: 22 entries in _The Sun Never Sets._ He tried another, then another. 8 in _They Called Us Half-Breeds,_ 6 in _The War on Werewolves._ 15 in _Dark Magic_. 111 in _Pureblood Supremacy through the Ages._

“It’s so fucked up,” Sirius blurted out. “I knew, but I didn’t _know_ —I mean, how bad it was. How bad they were. _We_ were.” Misery etched itself across his face as he watched Remus with the books in his hands. “I can’t…” He looked down. “I can’t believe you want to be with me.”

Remus stared at him.

“Those people _raised_ me,” Sirius said, gesturing toward the picture of Walburga and Orion. “They told me to be proud of the Blacks. Did you know that my dad’s cousin nearly killed a man in Knockturn Alley because he thought he was a werewolf? And he got off. The judge thought it was a ‘reasonable provocation.’”

“You left them,” Remus said, finding his voice, but barely. “You left.”

“Yes but—” Sirius tugged at his hair. “Fuck.”

Remus sat for a moment, the books surrounding them. He attempted to name what it was he was feeling. But he couldn’t. Perhaps that was because he didn’t know. Sirius’ creeping guilt, his worry that Remus would not want him, was—unexpected. Blankly, Remus probed his mind for something to say. He couldn’t tell Sirius he was wrong about his family. He couldn’t tell him that he didn’t care, that he hadn’t thought about this. And there was something strange about Sirius needing comfort from him, of all people, on this particular subject.

He tried simply to say the thing that felt true. “Whatever else has happened,” he began, “I told you I was a werewolf and you didn’t even have a single moment of fear or revulsion or horror. So. You’ve unlearned some of it, at least. Whatever they fed you.”

Sirius swallowed. “Yeah?” He sounded doubtful.

“Yeah.”

But neither of them could help looking back at the books. Remus felt drawn to them with a sick fascination. He did want to know what they said, what Sirius had read. Remus didn’t expect there was much he didn’t know about werewolf history, and his grandfather had made sure he understood just how big a part the wizarding world had played in British colonialism. Yet he itched to see those things spelled out in black and white on the pages of these leather- and cloth-bound books. As if reading his mind, Sirius grabbed one of them— _Dark Magic: A Racial History of the Unforgivable Curses_ —and paged through it.

“Read it,” he said, pressing it into Remus hands, pointing at a spot on the page.

_In certain areas during the British Raj, the Cruciatus Curse was used on children as young as seven when they failed to speak English in their schoolrooms. Arcturus Black, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, was one of the most vocal proponents of the practice, insisting that the heightened susceptibility of children to pain would instill fear and respect for the ruling tongue at an early age._

Remus’ stomach turned. He had heard stories like this. He guessed that Sirius had, too, to some extent, but he could understand why it felt different now. Remus closed his eyes and it was as if the heavy truths of who he was, the traumas and atrocities and daily indignities that were etched into his bones, his body, his history, were settling deeper into him. Yet they sat uncomfortably, an ill-distributed weight Remus had never learned how to properly carry.

Remus pulled Sirius wordlessly to his feet and sat them both down on the bed. He held Sirius’ hand, thinking.

“My great-great-aunt led a Victorian anti-werewolf campaign,” Sirius blurted out.

“Sirius.” Remus took a breath. “Just…I don’t know how to—I don’t know what to say. I can’t—I don’t know if you want me to—to—tell you it’s all right, or say it’s not your fault—”

“No!” Sirius looked horrified. “That’s not your job, fuck, I’m sorry, now I’m putting this all on you—”

“ _Sirius_.” Remus gently put a hand over Sirius’ mouth. Sirius’ lips moved a little bit longer and then he stopped, falling silent. Remus kept his hand there for another moment. “I…don’t think this crisis of yours is really about me. No, stop, that’s not a bad thing. You’ve got a lot of shit about your family and it’s all coming up right now. Which is fair, and I’ve got a lot of shit too, it’s just…I don’t—I want to be _Remus_.” He bit his lip. “Do you know what I mean?”

Sirius shook his head. His eyes were pained, confused.

Remus sighed. “Look. It’s objectively terrible, right? You, a Black, treating me, a werewolf whose mum is from India, like a child, hurting me, being—being paternal, condescending, like I can’t take care of myself—I mean, yeah, like, I know what that looks like. Of course I do. But I…” He clenched and unclenched his fingers, opening and closing his hands. He said, softly, “But I want you to.”

Sirius winced. “I know. I mean, I get that. But…but…”

“Can’t I just be me?” Remus said, a note of frustration creeping into his voice. “Can’t I just—does everything I do have to be representative of where my family comes from and all the bad things that have happened to me and—and—what if I just _want_ it, what if it feels good—”

Sirius’ brow was drawn in concentration. He nodded slowly. “Right. Right, but…isn’t some of it…well. Related to all that stuff. The things you want. I don’t want to assume, but…”

Remus put his face in his hands and dug his thumbs into the hollows above his eyelids. He pictured Sirius’ penetrating eyes fixed on the scars he usually tried so hard to cover up. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I want that stuff partly—maybe not totally, maybe I’d want it anyway, but—but partly because of…of things that have happened to me. Because of who I am. It’s why I want…” He took a deep breath. “Why I want to be taken care of.” The words came out very quietly, hardly audible at all. He could hear a tiny tremor in his voice. An echo of the way he felt in bed, when Sirius was gently prying him open and extracting all the fears and desires Remus couldn’t admit to, washed over him. “I was bitten when I was five, Sirius, I didn’t ever really get to be a kid. And that’s not—maybe that’s fucked up, to want—to deal with it like this, but—”

All at once Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus and pulled him in. He squeezed him tight, breathing in at the crook of Remus’ neck and shoulder. “Is it fucked up?” he asked quietly. “Am I fucked up, to want to be what my family is like? You know. Dominant. Controlling.”

“It doesn’t sound like your family is very kind when they’re being controlling,” Remus said. “It doesn’t sound like their dominance is about caring for people. You care for me. I feel so cared for.”

Sirius kissed his neck, still wrapped around Remus so Remus couldn’t see his face.

“That helps,” Sirius said eventually. “But still.”

“I know.” Remus smoothed back Sirius’ hair. “But I mean…what if we are? What if we are fucked up? Does it—does it matter?”

Finally, Sirius pulled back. He kept his hands on Remus’ waist and looked at him. “You really think that?”

Remus nodded. “I think—I think we’ve both been through a lot of really shitty stuff. And…I’m not, like, okay, you know? Not really. Not ever, probably.”

Sirius squeezed Remus and kissed him fiercely on his face.

“And you either,” Remus pressed. “So maybe the things we want, need, get turned on by, maybe they’re—I don’t know. In some ways, fucked up. But also, we’re doing it together, right, and not hurting each other and it feels so good and like—like it’s making me better, Sirius, and so—so if it’s fucked up it’s not fucked up in the way that your family is fucked up because it’s—it’s care, too, isn’t it? Taking care of each other, and—and please don’t take that away, don’t deny yourself that or me that, Sirius, please—”

Sirius pushed him down onto the bed and laid his whole body atop Remus’ and kissed him on the mouth. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Remus said, kissing him, “I’m glad we talked—it’s not like I haven’t thought about it—” Sirius swallowed, looking down. “I just, er—I’ve never been—I never thought. That this. That I could…”

Sirius kissed him again. “I know,” he said. “You were wrong.” Another kiss. “You want me to show you that, right? That you were wrong?”

Remus’ eyes fluttered shut and he held them closed for a moment. “Yes,” he whispered.

“I can do that,” Sirius said. “If you really want me to—”

“I want you to.” Remus swallowed. “I really want you to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain)!


	9. Chapter 9

James and Lily Potter lived an hour outside London in an absurdly charming little one-story house with a brick chimney and flower boxes in the windows. Remus calculated automatically when he saw it: an Auror’s salary, and a shop clerk’s; one of them must have family money to be able to afford the place. A little flicker of resentment passed through him, automatic, fading as quickly as it came. His sense of inadequacy went away less easily.

“Are you sure they’ll like me?” Remus murmured as they approached. He immediately wanted to kick himself for how pathetic he sounded, but Sirius only grinned.

“Honestly, they’ll be too busy ragging me for finally settling down with someone that they won’t remember to judge you.”

Warmth and pleasure and nerves blossomed, intertwined, in Remus’ stomach. He raised an eyebrow at Sirius, concealing his response with a gently teasing tone. “Are we _settling down_? Is that what this is?”

Sirius flushed a bit but said gamely, “Sure we are. Longest relationship I’ve had in years.”

Remus couldn’t tell if he was kidding. There was so much he didn’t know about Sirius, so much Sirius didn’t know about him. It ought to worry him, he thought, but it didn’t. Sirius already knew the worst about him, and he thought he probably knew the worst about Sirius. What was left were exes and favorite foods and annoying habits and how they each reacted to too-hot days and freezing nights. Remus wanted to memorize it all, uncover it all, slowly, savoring each bit.

What was left, also, were Sirius’ friends, he reminded himself with a quickening of his pulse, glancing at the house ahead. Sirius took his hand as they walked up to the front door and Remus couldn’t tell if Sirius was being comforting or sweet or territorial or if he was a little anxious himself, but he was grateful for the squeeze Sirius gave him. He squeezed back.

The door opened before they had a chance to knock, revealing a fit, black-haired man in glasses grinning at them in delight.

“Hello! Remus! It’s so good to meet you! Sirius has told us loads about you—or, well, he’s talked about you loads, though Lily and I were just saying we don’t actually know all that much other than that you’re ‘amazing’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘dead sexy.’” He stuck out a hand. “James Potter.”

Remus shook, slightly dazed by the brilliance of the man’s smile. “It’s great to meet you too.”

“You as well!” James said, though he’d said it already.

“Oh, hi, James,” Sirius cut in loudly.

James shot him a look that entirely failed to be anything but affectionate. “Oh, shut it, I’ve already met you. Come in! Lily’s making chicken kiev—it’s her first attempt so she’s a bit manic—and I made my signature Battenberg cake for after.”

“Very posh,” Sirius said.

“Have to impress the boyfriend, you know.”

“Sounds lovely,” Remus replied faintly. He was entirely overwhelmed: by the friendly boisterousness of this handsome man, by being called “boyfriend,” by the bright patterned wallpaper, by the cheerful messiness of the kitchen into which they followed James. Mint green walls sported a variety of cheaply framed photos (some of a younger Sirius, which Remus made firm plans with himself to look at more closely later), and a kettle and pitcher and cups and microwave and pink toaster littered the shiny wooden granite-topped cabinets. Lily, her red hair up in a messy bun, stood barefoot in front of the stove, spatula raised like a weapon ready to strike.

“Remus! Sirius! Hi!” she said, turning to greet them. “Remus, I’d give you a hug but the oil is nearly hot enough to put this chicken on and I’ve spent too long pounding it down to the appropriate thickness and forcing it into a log shape around herb butter to risk messing it up now.” She pointed at the cookbook, spattered with various unidentifiable substances, open on the counter. “The source of my torment. It had better be worth it.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Remus managed. There was more noise and energy coming at him than he’d experienced in quite a long time, he noted, a little stunned.

“Not even going to pretend you’d hug _me_ if you could,” Sirius commented. “I see how it is.”

James rolled his eyes. “He’s so insecure,” he said to Remus. “Really, he just has no ego at all.”

Remus laughed. He wanted to joke that that hadn’t been his experience with Sirius but he couldn’t quite work up the nerve.

From down the hall, there was the sound of the front door opening again and a voice calling out. “Hello?”

“In the kitchen,” James and Sirius both called back, and a moment later a short, round young man appeared in the doorway.

“This is Peter,” said Sirius.

“I’ve got beer,” Peter said, holding up a six-pack. “Hello! You must be Remus.”

James took the beer from Peter and went to help Lily at the stove and the four of them all chattered in the manner of friends who had been carrying on more or less the same conversation for more than a decade. Remus watched, feeling—well, it was complicated, he thought as he assessed himself; he was anxious that he was being too quiet, and he was just a little jealous, but overwhelmingly his main response to this tight-knit little group was simply to feel starstruck. James reached behind Sirius for a beer and Sirius placed a towel in Lily’s outstretched hand without her saying a word and Peter laughed at some half-funny joke so hard he erupted into a coughing fit. Their closeness and comfort with each other and confidence made them seem like people Remus had only read about in books. He hadn’t known that this kind of intimacy could exist in real life, not really.

The world was so bright here. There was music, some rock song from the previous decade that Sirius had insisted upon listening to, and someone always seemed to be talking. Remus watched Sirius make fun of James’ misbehaving hair, patting it down and letting it spring back up again, and he felt a strange mix of fear and impossible joy. He was here. He was here in this house, with these people. He, Remus Lupin, had been invited in.

They ate chicken kiev and garlic bread. A burst of hot butter, flavored with tarragon and parsley, burnt Remus’ mouth. Peter asked him about his job and Lily asked him about where he grew up and James asked brightly if he thought Sirius was a weird pervert when he first met him, “since he did try to pick you up in a sex shop.”

Remus choked a little on his beer.

“It’s not generally advisable to hit on people at the shop,” said Lily. “We don’t encourage it. We like to create a safe and welcoming atmosphere.” She shot a mock scolding look at Sirius.

“Good thing I did, though,” Sirius said comfortably, putting his arm around Remus.

“Yes,” Remus agreed, and then, after a second, dared to add, “I did wonder for a moment if I’d have to hex him in self-defense, though.”

They all laughed. Remus took a bite of his garlic bread to hide his pleasure at their reaction.

Peter was actually rather interested in Remus’ work with the Department of Magical Transportation and asked a number of questions about it that he seemed to genuinely want to know the answer to. He was also thrilled to hear that James had made Battenberg cake: “He made it for the first time last year and it was _good_! It actually worked and it looked good!”

“I’m wounded by your tone of surprise,” James said.

“Well, you’re sort of shit at cooking,” Peter replied, unperturbed.

James grinned. “It’s true. The secret,” he said, turning to Remus, “is that baking is actually quite different from cooking.”

“It’s hilarious to me that you’re good at the thing that requires following instructions to the letter,” Sirius said dryly.

“It’s hilarious to all of us,” Peter chimed in.

“James can follow instructions quite well when he wants to. Or when I want him too,” Lily said, smirking, and Peter groaned dramatically.

“Keep us out of your bedroom, please, how many times do we have to tell you?” he wailed. “I know you’re all very mature and open about your sex lives, but I prefer not to know about the sort of things my friends get up to behind closed doors. I just have this feeling it’s all very bizarre and I’m better off not knowing what weirdos you all are.”

Everyone laugheds, including Peter, but then Peter went wide-eyed and shot an alarmed look at Remus.

“I didn’t mean—” he fumbled, “not because—I mean, you know.”

Remus certainly did not know. He looked at Sirius, confused. Sirius raised his eyebrows and offered a tiny shrug.

“You know,” Peter pressed. “I mean, I just wanted to make sure you know that I—that we all—we’re okay with it.”

For a horrible second Remus thought he meant the fact that he was a werewolf. Then, for another less horrible but still fairly unpleasant second, he thought he meant the fact that he called Sirius “Daddy” when they fucked. Then he remembered that there was no way Peter could know about those things, unless Sirius had told him, which Remus trusted that he hadn’t.

“Oh,” he said, realizing belatedly what Peter meant. “Er. Thank you?”

His lycanthropy was such an all-consuming fact of his identity that it had largely overshadowed what Remus knew would likely have otherwise been a rather tortuous coming-to-terms with his sexuality. Being gay had seemed to him, when he began to understand around age sixteen what his attraction to the boys in the village shops had meant, only another, minor addition to the great howling secret at the heart of him. Being a werewolf was already so much of an obstruction to dating that he could shrug off his preference for men with the wry thought that it didn’t much matter anyway. When he was older and went out looking for casual sex—the only kind he’d really thought he could have—he’d found it comforting to know that his partners at least had their own reasons for being circumspect and secretive.

“Peter,” James said gently. “I’m quite sure Sirius has told him we’re all right with it. If we weren’t he wouldn’t be here.”

“Much appreciated, mate,” Sirius says, “but let’s not make a fuss of it, all right? You’re making Remus blush.”

Remus resisted the urge to put his hand on his cheek to see if it was indeed warm. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. He managed a smile at Peter, who looked relieved.

“Battenberg time!” James announced, getting to his feet. He brought in the white rectangle with some fanfare and cut into it to reveal neat pink-and-yellow squares of cake.

“Wow,” said Sirius. “I’m genuinely impressed.”

They admired the cake for a long moment.

“Can we eat it now?” Peter asked.

It was indeed delicious. As they finished up, scraping crumbs from plates and licking forks, Remus noticed James shooting Lily a meaningful glance. A smile jumped quickly to her face, and James smiled back; they both looked, for a second, entirely unaware that anyone else was in the room with them. Then Lily cleared her throat.

“Okay. So. We know the timing may be a bit odd, seeing as we’ve just met you, Remus, but you’re important to Sirius and we’re happy to have you here, so—anyway—” She took a breath, glancing around the table. “James and I have something to tell you all.”

“Oh my god,” said Sirius suddenly. His eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Oh my god, it’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” Peter asked. He looked between James and Lily and Sirius, frowning. “You guys, tell me, what’s—wait. _Wait._ Oh my god! It’s happening!”

Remus stared at them all, totally nonplussed. James and Lily exchanged glances and then both sighed deeply.

“For Merlin’s sake, you two,” James said, “couldn’t you at least pretend to be surprised?”

“Good thing Remus is here,” Lily added. She was beaming, though, green eyes sparkling at Sirius and Peter. “At least someone can’t figure out everything we’re going to say before we say it.”

Remus blinked, at a loss. “Erm…”

Everyone laughed. “It’s all right,” Lily said. “It’s just, er—James and I are going to have a baby, that’s all.”

Sirius and Peter let out exclamations as if they hadn’t already just guessed, and responded to, what she was going to say. Peter said, “Congratulations!” and Sirius added, “Can’t fucking wait to spoil it rotten.”

“Oh, wow.” Remus felt a little embarrassed. “That’s amazing. Congratulations.” He tried to shake the feeling that he was intruding. He told himself that they’d have saved it for another time if they hadn’t wanted him here.

“We’ve wanted kids for a long time,” James explained. “Really as soon as we got married. But the war wasn’t a good time, obviously. And then we decided to be, you know, _responsible_ and save up some money and get good jobs et cetera…”

“And now you’re ready to have at least six and name them all Sirius,” Sirius said.

“Oh, is that the plan?” Lily asked.

“Middle names at the very least.”

“Harry Sirius Potter,” James said thoughtfully. “Not half bad.”

“You’ve decided on a name?” Peter squealed.

“It’s a boy?” Sirius demanded.

“But it should really be Harry Sirius Peter Potter,” Peter said, then looked horrified. “Oh, god, no.”

“I’m teaching him Quidditch,” said Sirius. “I call it.”

“You can’t call teaching him Quidditch,” James answered, exasperated.

“How about you call changing his nappies?” Lily put in.

“I’ll change his nappies,” said Sirius. “I’ll teach him Quidditch and change his nappies and take him on trips to the shore and buy him tiny Gryffindor socks and babysit when you two need a night off.”

“How does Remus feel about that?” Lily asked, turning to him with an arched eyebrow. “Does babysitting sound like a fun date to you?”

Until that moment Remus had been, though feeling bursts of affection towards Sirius and happiness for Sirius’ friends, watching it all unfold assuming he was on the other side of the glass. Lily’s question hit him in the chest with the gentle accuracy of a soft and well-aimed blow. “Oh,” he said, blinking. He implored his face to remain neutral, his eyes to stay dry.

He was included. He was included in this vision of the future. Of Sirius’ future. Of all their futures.

“Yeah,” he said, and under the table his hand sought Sirius’. “Yeah, actually. That sounds great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain)!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, all! this was very fun to write.

Three months later: Lily let Remus touch the tiny baby bump she had started to develop. Peter started confiding in him about his worries that Sirius’ charmed motorbike would “explode midair over the South Downs.” James proudly showed him a drawer in his and Lily’s kitchen where he’d stocked up on Remus’ favorite kind of chocolate.

Sirius kept a spare toothbrush by Remus’ tiny sink and rubbed his back after the full moon.

One day he sat Remus down on Remus’ bed and said, very seriously, “I think we’ve forgotten something important.”

Remus’ stomach lurched. He knew better but his body still responded to situations like this with a panic response.

“We’ve forgotten what brought us together,” Sirius said. He took Remus’ hand. “There’s something I think we need to do.”

Remus, baffled, swallowed as inconspicuously as possible. “Okay.”

Sirius solemnly reached into the messenger bag at his feet and pulled out Remus’ Subatomic daddy dildo.

Remus stared at it for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“For fuck’s sake, Sirius,” he said, “I thought you were about to tell me something terrible.”

Sirius, still solemn-faced, said, “It is terrible. It’s terrible that we still haven’t used this.”

Remus took the dildo from him.

“Will you be a good little boy and spread your legs for daddy?” it said loudly.

Sirius broke, burying his face in his hands to hide his laughter.

“Why does it always do that?” Remus asked plaintively, giggling too. “It’s not supposed to say things every time you pick it up!”

“It only says things every time _you_ pick it up,” Sirius pointed out. “I think it just knows how badly you want it.”

“It’s not sentient, Sirius!”

“Could be,” he said. “The Subatomic toys are really very good.”

They collapsed into giggles again. Eventually, Sirius sobered up enough to say, “Okay, but. Really. Don’t you want to try it?”

Remus nodded. “Yeah. I really do.”

They looked at the dildo for a moment.

“Okay,” said Sirius. “Here’s what I think. I think you should take off your clothes and stick that up your arse.”

“Yeah?” Remus asked. “How does it work, then?”

“You get on all fours,” Sirius said, “or, well, any position, but I think you should be on all fours.”

“Sure,” Remus agreed.

“And then it’ll tell you to say stuff. And when you do, it’ll start moving.”

Remus nodded. His pulse was speeding up a little bit. “And what are you going to do?”

“Watch.”

“Ha,” Remus said. “Okay. Yep. I can do that.”

“Sounds good?”

“Sounds good.”

They looked at the dildo again.

“Well,” said Remus. “I’ll get naked, then.”

“Perfect.”

Remus set the dildo on the bed and stood up.

“Be good for daddy,” the dildo purred.

Remus glared at it balefully and pulled down his trousers.

He crouched on the bed on all fours, feeling Sirius’ eyes on him. The dildo was shoved up his arse as far as it could go. It felt slightly awkward, just sitting inside him as he hovered face-down over his pillow.

“ _Now_ it’s being quiet,” he murmured.

“Are you going to be a good boy for daddy?” it said.

He hadn’t quite thought about the fact that the voice would be emanating from his arse. It came out slightly muffled. He let out a startled laugh.

“Remus,” Sirius’ voice said from somewhere behind him. Sirius had pulled up Remus’ rickety desk chair beside the bed and was sitting in it, still fully clothed, watching Remus. He had kept his eyes on him the whole time Remus had slicked up the ridged dildo and inserted it slowly. He had been smirking a little. It had made Remus giggle more. “Time to take this seriously.”

Remus nodded. He felt like laughter was bubbling inside him, and he had an almost manic urge to let it out. He took a deep, slow breath.

“Tell daddy what you want,” said the dildo from his arse.

Remus dissolved into laughter.

“Remus,” Sirius said. Remus heard him stand and step closer. He felt Sirius’ hand settle on the back of his neck. “Breathe.”

Remus breathed. Slowly, the laughter died down. He stilled himself as best he could.

“Good,” said Sirius. “Now. Listen to daddy.”

Sirius stepped away. Remus took another long breath.

“Are you going to be a good boy for daddy?” the dildo asked.

“Yes,” Remus breathed.

The dildo gave a little jerk. Remus sucked in a gasp.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said again.

“What do you want daddy to do?”

“Fuck me,” Remus managed.

The dildo jerked again. Then it stopped.

“What do you say?” it asked.

Remus bit his lip. There was something about begging this piece of rubber in his arsehole to fuck him that made his head go hot and cold, face burning, the top of his head burning too.

“Remus,” Sirius said softly. “Answer it.”

“Fuck me, daddy,” Remus said.

The dildo thrust back and then forward. Remus cried out. It fucked him slow, its ribbed surface pulling in and out, stretching his arsehole with each movement. He tried to breathe through it, burying his face in the pillow and rocking his hips.

It was quickly becoming frustrating. Remus wanted _more_. He wanted it deeper and harder and _faster._

“Sirius,” he moaned.

“Don’t ask me,” Sirius said. His voice sounded strained. Remus spared a thought to wonder if he was touching himself yet. “Ask daddy.”

Remus moaned. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

The dildo began to slow even more.

“Shit,” he breathed. “Okay. Okay. Okay.” He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Please. More.”

“Good boys ask nicely,” said the voice, and the dildo continued to slow.

“Please, daddy,” Remus gasped out. “Please, please, daddy, I’ll be good, I’ll—more, more, please daddy, faster, harder, I need it, _please_ —”

A sudden hard thrust, and then Remus was getting fucked within an inch of his life.

He heard Sirius start to breathe heavily.

His arsehole burned. His arms and legs began to shake as he tried to hold himself up, to stay on all fours. Sweat dripped onto the sheets. His cock dripped onto the sheets. But it was hard to concentrate on his cock when all his arousal was concentrated in his arsehole, which seemed to tingle and pulse with increasing intensity as if it were possible to have an orgasm _there._

Whenever the dildo began to slow, Remus gasped out, “Please, daddy. Faster, please.” Eventually he was babbling, a long unending litany: “Please, Daddy, please fuck me, please Daddy I need it, please please please.”

He could hear Sirius’s hand moving rhythmically behind him.

“I want to come,” he said finally. He had collapsed onto the bed, legs and arms splayed. His limbs were limp, jellylike. The dildo just kept going, at the same unforgiving pace. It would never flag. It could keep going forever. Remus moaned. _He_ couldn’t keep going forever.

“Please, daddy,” he begged, “let me come. Let me come.”

“You want to come for daddy?” the dildo asked.

“Yes. Yes. Please. Please.”

“Good boy.”

Remus buried his face into the pillow, breathing hard.

“Such a good boy.”

“ _Please_.”

“Come for daddy,” the dildo purred.

Remus whimpered and shoved his hand between his legs, pulling at his overheated cock.

“Come for daddy.”

“Do it, Remus,” Sirius said behind him, voice strangled, “do what daddy says.”

Remus came. He shouted out as his cock jumped and pulsed and squirted all over the bed as the dildo fucked him through it, steady, crooning, “Good boy. Daddy’s good boy.”

Remus panted, orgasm gripping him as he clenched his fists into the sheets, and the dildo fucked and fucked him. He couldn’t catch his breath. His orgasm shuddered out and Remus lay there, flat on the bed, unable to move, as the dildo kept going.

“I…” he murmured helplessly, trying to get out the words. “I…”

“Okay,” Sirius said. His cool hand descended low on Remus’ back. “That’s enough, daddy.”

The dildo slowed to a stop.

Sirius grasped the end and pulled it out of Remus.

“Holy shit,” Sirius murmured, lying down next to Remus. Remus was still gasping for air. He reached blindly for Sirius. Sirius stroked his hand over Remus’ damp sweaty hair.

“Wow,” he said. “That was…you looked really fucking good. You _sounded_ really fucking good.”

“Yeah?” Remus managed.

“Yeah,” Sirius said. He wrapped his arms around Remus. Remus burrowed into him. “Did you like it?” Sirius asked.

Remus nodded.

“Can I—?” Sirius asked, moving his stiff cock, which was hanging out of his pants, gently against Remus’ body.

Remus nodded again. Sirius reached down and pulled himself off, gasping quietly into a gentle orgasm. He let out a breath and flopped down on the bed. Both of them lay on their stomachs and turned their heads to look at each other.

Remus smiled. Sirius smiled back.

“I feel like we owe that dildo kind of a lot,” Sirius said.

“Yeah,” said Remus. He kissed Sirius. “That’s it. All thanks to the dildo.”

“Who would have thought?” Sirius asked. He stroked Remus’ face. “I love you,” he murmured.

Remus kissed him again. “I love you too.”

“Be a good boy for daddy,” said the dildo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebp-brain)!


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